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San Francisco congressional candidate pulls AI chatbot impersonating rival after backlash

2026-08-09 | USA | incident | reputational, psychological
Our take

Campaign ops built a chatbot to mock the opponent. It said things a human aide would have been fired for.

The facts

California state senator Scott Wiener used an AI chatbot to impersonate and mock rival Connie Chan in the race to replace Nancy Pelosi. The chatbot was widely condemned as racist and sexist by Pelosi and others, leading Wiener to remove the site and related billboards after public backlash.

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