--- title: "New European Political Party Is Led by an Artificial Intelligence" description: "Introducing: The Synthetic Party, a new political party in Denmark that hopes to soon have a parliament seat. Oh, and by the way, its head honcho, Leader Lars, is actually an AI chatbot, and all of its policies are AI-derived. Cool? Asker Staunæs, the creator of the party and an artist-researcher at the non-profit art […]" date: "2022-10-16" modified: "2022-10-16" authors: - name: "Maggie Harrison Dupré" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/mharrison" url: "https://futurism.com/political-party-led-by-artificial-intelligence" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" tags: - "ai" - "artifical intelligence" - "politics" - "the synthetic party" --- # New European Political Party Is Led by an Artificial Intelligence ![Introducing: The Synthetic Party, a new political party in Denmark. Their head honcho, Leader Lars, is an AI chatbot, and all policies are AI-derived.]() *Artificial intelligence robot touching futuristic data screen. \Image: Getty Images\* Introducing: The Synthetic Party, a new political party in Denmark that hopes to soon have a parliament seat. Oh, and by the way, its head honcho, Leader Lars, is actually an AI chatbot, and all of its policies are AI-derived. Cool? Asker Staunæs, the creator of the party and an artist-researcher at the nonprofit art and tech organization MindFuture, [told *Motherboard*]() that Leader Lars is specifically trained on policies formed by post-1970 Danish fringe parties — and thus, he says, the party is designed to collectively represent the roughly 20 percent of present-day Danish voters whose parties remain unrepresented in parliament. "We're representing the data of all fringe parties, so it's all of the parties who are trying to get elected into parliament but don't have a seat," Staunæs told the site. "So it's a person who has formed a political vision of their own that they would like to realize, but they usually don't have the money or resources to do so." Leader Lars is, in a way, an inherent populist, as its "policies" — which according to *Motherboard* include universal basic income and "jointly-owned internet and IT sector in the government" — are entirely crowdsourced from existing human data and creation. But that being said, Staunæs doesn't necessarily believe that Leader Lars perfectly democratic. "Artificial intelligence in the form of machine learning, has already absorbed so much human input that we can say that in one way, everybody participates in these models through the data that they have submitted to the Internet," Staunæs told *Motherboard*. "But the systems as we have today are not encouraging more active participation, where people actually take control of their data and images, which we can in another way through this concentrated form that publicly available machine learning models offer." Importantly, because Leader Lars is in fact a machine, it's not allowed to run for public office itself. The same rules, however, don't apply to the party's human members, who in theory could one day run as a stand-in for it. And hey, humans serving as messengers for technologies and texts that others aren't able to grasp have always been completely fair and good for society, right? "Leader Lars is the figurehead of the party," Staunæs continued. "Denmark is a representative democracy, so would have humans on the ballot that are representing Leader Lars and who are committed to acting as a medium for the AI." Per *Motherboard*, The Synthetic Party so far has only [11 signatures out of the 20,000]() needed in order to legally run for Danish parliament, so they certainly have a ways to go. (We're considering taking over/under bets on if Leader Lars gets a chair in Parliament [before Zuck gets his legs](), though.) **READ MORE:** *[This Danish Political Party Is Led by an AI]()* \[*Motherboard*\] ## Author At Futurism, I've reported extensively on the rise of AI as a cultural and business force shaping the media industry, and more broadly how those dynamics are changing how we all consume and share information and relate to one another. I'm also fascinated by public health policy and ethics, the role of emerging tech in politics and governance — and the powerful people and forces at those intersections — climate change, and the environment. My investigation on Sports Illustrated's use of AI-generated authors with fictional biographies won a 2024 Mirror Award for "Best Story on Media Coverage of Artificial Intelligence in Journalism and the Media" from Syracuse University's SI Newhouse School, I contributed to Niemen Lab's 2025 Predictions for Journalism series, and I've discussed my work for Futurism during appearances on NPR, CNN, the BBC, the CBC, and more. I grew up in rural Pennsylvania and attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where I played Division I field hockey for the Minutewomen as a midfielder. Since then, I've lived in New Orleans, Louisiana and Manhattan, New York. I spend my free time running, reading, perusing archival fashion, and searching for the world’s best negroni. I also have a debonair tuxedo cat, Westley, who's named after "The Princess Bride." ### Author social links [Bluesky]()