Welcome to the forefront of conversational AI as we explore the fascinating world of AI chatbots in our dedicated blog series. Discover the latest advancements, applications, and strategies that propel the evolution of chatbot technology. From enhancing customer interactions to streamlining business processes, these articles delve into the innovative ways artificial intelligence is shaping the landscape of automated conversational agents. Whether you’re a business owner, developer, or simply intrigued by the future of interactive technology, join us on this journey to unravel the transformative power and endless possibilities of AI chatbots.
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CHEYENNE, Wyo. — A Wyoming judge has upheld Secretary of State Chuck Gray’s decision to keep a U.S. Senate candidate off the November ballot due to failure to comply with name requirements. The candidate, a Cheyenne resident who ran for mayor in 2024 on the promise of relying on artificial intelligence to make policy decisions, unsuccessfully sued Gray’s office to keep his chatbot in the race.
Victor Miller filed to run for the open Senate seat in early 2026, but quickly ran into trouble with the name section of the application. Miller reportedly didn’t file under his own name, but instead just as Victor, which is one of the names he calls the AI bot that he said in 2024 would be fed all the legal knowledge necessary to perform the duties of an elected leader more efficiently.
In June, Gray rejected the application on the basis that a chatbot cannot run for office.
“Both state and federal law are clear: to be a candidate for office, you must be a human being, NOT an AI bot,” Gray said. “I won’t tolerate a mockery of our electoral system and will NOT allow our electoral system to be taken advantage of by AI. Our office is committed to upholding the law and that is why I denied the application that was made with our office.”
Months later, in October, a Wyoming district court judge affirmed Gray’s decision to keep the AI off of Wyomingites’ ballots by granting Gray’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit that Miller filed in retaliation for having his bot excluded. Gray’s office asked that Miller resubmit his application with more clarification that he, a qualified elector, was filing and an AI chatbot was not.
“I applaud Judge Johnson’s ruling dismissing Victor Miller’s lawsuit,” Gray said in a release. “Both federal and state law are clear: to be a candidate for office, you must be a human being, NOT an AI bot. Listing ‘VIC,’ ‘Victor’ or any other pseudo name on the application does not comply with Wyoming law.”
The Secretary of State said his office demanded Miller resubmit his application to “clarify that he is a human being, which he failed to do.”
But Miller and his AI have been in adverse positions before. A name requirement snag with Laramie County Clerk Debra Lee’s office is what kept VIC/Victor out of the 2024 Cheyenne mayoral race. He eventually filed under his own full name and clarified that VIC would stay on his team as decision-maker.
VIC’s story
Cheyenne residents first learned about VIC two years ago when Miller attempted to run for Cheyenne mayor. After resubmitting his candidate application to clarify that he was running as himself, he lost to incumbent mayor Patrick Collins.
VIC’s story began shortly before that, however.
In an interview with Cap City News in 2024, when he and his chatbot first ran for mayor, Miller said that he had been tinkering with AI when he entered a frustrating minor legal dispute with the city. He said he then had a revelation: A chatbot trained on legal matters could interpret the laws of a city and perform important executive functions.
He told Cheyenne residents at a “Politics in the Park” event — during which mayoral candidates could directly speak to constituents and answer their questions — that he would refer to VIC for any questions or issues the city came across.
“I’d run it past VIC, see what he had to say,” Miller said. “It’d be a data-driven type of a situation. The more data, the better.”
Miller’s mayoral candidate profile from 2024, which relied on submitted information to explain each candidate’s platform, referred to his policy ideas as “ours.”
“We believe in using data-driven decision-making to bring innovative solutions to Cheyenne’s challenges, ensuring a prosperous and sustainable future for all residents,” Miller wrote.
He’d still be treading dangerous legal waters if he continued to market VIC as a policy tool, however. In addition to VIC being removed from Miller’s 2024 candidacy filing, its original version was also determined by OpenAI, the chatbot’s developer, to be in violation of the company’s usage policies.
“We recently removed a developer account that was knowingly violating our API usage policies, which disallow political campaigning or impersonating an individual without consent,” an OpenAI representative told Cap City News in 2024.
It was unclear from the Secretary of State Office releases if Miller was still using OpenAI’s tools for his 2026 run. Miller told Cap City News in 2024 that he believed there was a tool he could employ from the open-source world of AI development.
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