I admit to Hutchinson that if I were a politician I would be afraid to use BattlegroundAI. Generative AI tools are notorious for “hallucinating,” a polite way of saying that they sometimes make things up out of whole cloth. (They make nonsense if I use academic language.) I ask her how she ensures that the political content generated by BattlegroundAI is accurate.
“Nothing is automated,” she replies. Hutchinson notes that the BattlegroundAI copy is a starting point, and that the campaign people have to review and approve it before it goes out. “You might not have a lot of time or a huge team, but you’re definitely looking at it.”
Of course, there is a growing movement to oppose the way AI companies train their products on art, writing and other creative work without asking for permission. I ask Hutchinson what she would say to people who might object to how tools like ChatGPT are taught. “These are incredibly valid concerns,” she says. “We need to talk to Congress. We need to talk to our elected officials.
I ask if BattlegroundAI is looking into offering language models that are trained only on public domain or licensed data. “Always open to it,” she says. “We also need to give people, especially those who are under time constraints, in resource-constrained environments, the best tools available to them.” We want to have consistent results for consumers and high-quality information – so the more models available, I think the better for everyone.”
And how would Hutchinson respond to people in the progressive movement—who usually align themselves with the labor movement—objecting to the automation of copywriting? “Obviously valid concerns,” she says. “The fears that come with the introduction of any new technology – we fear the computer, the light bulb.”
Hutchinson states her position: She does not see this as a substitute for human labor, but as a way of reducing drudgery. “I’ve worked in advertising for a very long time and there are so many elements of it that are repetitive that it honestly drains creativity,” she says. “AI takes away the boring stuff.” She sees BattlegroundAI as a helper for overworked and underfunded teams.
Taylor Coots, a Kentucky-based political strategist who recently started using the service, describes it as “very sophisticated” and says it helps identify groups of target voters and ways to personalize messages to reach them in a way that which would otherwise be difficult for small campaigns. In battleground races in gerrymandered districts where progressive candidates are big underdogs, budgets are tight. “We don’t have millions of dollars,” he says. “Any opportunities we have for efficiency, we’re looking for them.”
