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Artificial intelligence is changing the way many Americans approach problems. Students look to ChatGPT to finish their homework assignments, honeymooners ask it to plan their trips. People even turn to chatbots for advice on their love lives. And now an organization suggests that AI is the key to reshaping American politics. NPR's Barbara Sprunt brings us this report.
BARBARA SPRUNT, BYLINE: Brett Loyd, a political operative who used to work as a pollster for Donald Trump when he was a candidate, opens his laptop and shows me an AI tool he thinks will change the face of traditional politics.
BRETT LOYD: We're looking at tens of thousands of social media posts. Right now, it's highly polarized, right? And we can go in though and see, like, what is the center talking about? We can break this out - age groups, partisan groups, any question that we have.
SPRUNT: Loyd runs a nonpartisan data firm and oversees the polling and research at the Independent Center, an organization that studies independent voters. Its goal is to elect a handful of independents to the House of Representatives next year, a bold target in a system that hasn't seen a new independent candidate win a seat in 35 years.
LOYD: Ditching the donkey and the elephant and actually just running kind of a common sense campaign - now people think, well, yeah, that's cute, but it doesn't work. When have we tried it?
SPRUNT: He's using that AI tool to understand core voter issues and to hunt for districts ripe for an independent candidate to swoop in.
LOYD: We're going in and we're looking at voter participation rates. What districts in America have really low turnout? Because those people aren't excited to go to the ballot box.
SPRUNT: He's also looking at districts with younger voters who he says resonate with the independent movement.
LOYD: When I say Gen Z and millennial, people keep rolling their eyes, and they're like, well, the kids. Well those kids are going to be more than half the electorate next presidential election.
SPRUNT: Adam Brandon is a senior advisor at the Independent Center and used to run the conservative grassroots group FreedomWorks. He says unlike traditional polling methods, AI monitors what people are talking about in real time.
ADAM BRANDON: Polling is a snapshot in time. At Tuesday at 11 o'clock when you got the phone call or you were at the focus group, this is how you felt. But then you went home and you saw something and your views - we can watch that.
SPRUNT: He says those trends helped identify 40 districts where an independent could win.
BRANDON: And it actually turned up districts that I didn't think were in play.
SPRUNT: They're planning to run about 10 people, and they're using the tool to find the candidates too. Here's Loyd.
LOYD: I say, I want to know in this industry, in this sector, who has the most social posts or the most followers. And it can give me a list of five, 10 people. Now, 50% of them might be Republican or Democrats. Fifty percent of them might be people that would be open to having this conversation.
SPRUNT: Loyd says the AI also looks for people who are active in their community, maybe sitting on a school board or volunteering.
LOYD: Usually, they're not self-promoting themselves, but their actions leave a footprint, and we asked our AI to find that footprint.
SPRUNT: Brandon points to one instance where a candidate was going to run in their home district until the AI showed the district next door was a better bet.
BRANDON: This other district 30 minutes away, perfect fit. And that's what they're going to do.
SPRUNT: One criticism Loyd says they'll have to overcome is the idea that independent candidates are spoilers, siphoning votes away from other candidates without enough support to win outright. Loyd calls it an outdated critique.
LOYD: In the 1950s, you could get vanilla or chocolate. When strawberry was introduced, the only people that were like, damn it, strawberry is now a choice for the American people, the only people that were sour about it were those that were hawking vanilla and chocolate.
SPRUNT: He points to low approval ratings for both parties.
LOYD: It's not good. If it was great, the people would be happy, and there wouldn't be this big rush over the last 10, 15 years to declare yourself an independent. We didn't create that. We were just saying there needs to be more options.
SPRUNT: Last year, Gallup found 43% of Americans, a record high, called themselves independent.
DAVID BARKER: There's a huge chunk of people who, like, can't stomach either of the two parties.
SPRUNT: That's David Barker, a professor of government at American University.
BARKER: For the first time in a long time, the plurality of Americans were now identifying as independents. And so that does seem to signal a pretty important shift.
SPRUNT: And in a time when the power of the House balances on a knife's edge, winning even a handful of seats could deny either party from getting a majority and up end the way the House works.
Barbara Sprunt, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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