Scott Wiener is pulling the ConnieChan.ai chatbot and the billboards that promoted it after the California state senator’s campaign faced a sharp backlash over the AI parody aimed at his congressional rival, Connie Chan. The move marks a quick retreat for a campaign stunt that was meant to attack Chan’s record, but instead became the dominant story in the race.
Wiener, who is seeking to replace former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in San Francisco’s 11th Congressional District, said Friday that his campaign would take down the chatbot and remove the ads that pointed voters to it. He said the project was created as a parody to highlight what he described as Chan’s record on housing, public transportation and other issues. In his statement, Wiener said the effort was intended to draw attention to what he called Chan’s “delay and obstruction” on critical needs.
The senator also acknowledged that the tactic had missed its mark. He said the controversy ended up focusing attention on the method rather than the issues he wanted to spotlight, including housing, affordable health care, reliable transit, schools, and a stronger downtown. Wiener said the chatbot “clearly missed the mark,” and added that the ads would come down soon.
The backlash was led in part by Pelosi, along with a coalition of Democratic politicians and organizations that criticized the use of artificial intelligence to imitate Chan. In a joint statement attributed to Pelosi, members of Congress, San Francisco supervisors and local Democratic groups objected to putting words in a female candidate’s mouth. The group said women had spent generations fighting to have their own voices heard and should not have to contend with artificial intelligence doing that work for political ridicule.
The coalition also called the chatbot a gross misuse of technology and warned that AI-generated impersonations could erode public trust. The statement argued that using AI to fabricate a woman’s voice for campaign attacks could reinforce sexist stereotypes and weaken women in public life. The criticism turned the chatbot fight into more than a campaign gimmick; it became a dispute over the limits of artificial intelligence in politics and the tone candidates should use when attacking one another.
