City of Athens website sparks controversy with use of AI

Photo via the City of Athens

On July 29, the City of Athens’ YouTube account uploaded a 41-second video introducing Benny the Brick, a chatbot designed to answer any and all questions residents might have about Athens. This video, which can also be found on the city’s Instagram page, is the second most viewed video on the platform. 

The response from the community? Overwhelmingly negative. “You could, I don’t know, contact the visitors center or talk to someone who lives here perhaps,” one user commented. “God forbid we have to talk to one of 24,000 residents in town to get help with small questions, poisoning the water in this country is totally worth it,” another said. Several comments referred to Benny the Brick as a “clanker,” a popular new term, derogatory in nature, used to express people’s disdain towards robots and AI. 

Michael Bart, also known by his stage name DJ Barticus, has been particularly outspoken about his feelings toward Benny the Brick. On Aug. 5, Bart posted an Instagram reel of himself speaking against the city’s use of AI at a city council meeting with the caption, “I will not rest until Benny the Brick goes away, it’s him or me. #StopBennyTheBrick #AI.” “No one seems to want this,” Bart said in the video. “I just think we gotta stop Benny the Brick before it gets out of hand.” 

“Why are we investing money in this? Why does the mayor’s office think that we need to be leaders in this space?” Bart told The New Political in later comments.  “We are paying to be beta testers. An AI chatbot recently pushed a teen to kill himself. Does this chatbot have any safeguards? The city has a history of getting involved in contracts that quickly balloon out of control. I’m thinking of how expensive our solar-powered trash cans were and how the city had to pay a subscription fee and then a large fee to get them uninstalled.”  

Benny the Brick also has a tendency to provide misleading or false information, Bart said. “Here it is telling me I can park my car overnight uptown, you can’t, they will ticket all cars uptown between 4 and 6 a.m.”

Photo via Michael Bart

The future of AI use regarding the City of Athens website remains uncertain. Will they continue to work as pioneers in the beta-testing stages of AI use for citywide data? Or will they listen to the community’s feedback and abandon the project?