If you’ve been on the social media site X recently to wade into the debate over the New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, you may have come across CityDeskNYC. Read MoreSaihajpreet Singh’s bots are waging an online battle against progressive politicians in the U.S.
Saihajpreet Singh’s bots are waging an online battle against progressive politicians in the U.S.
Article content
If you’ve been on the social media site X recently to wade into the debate over the New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, you may have come across CityDeskNYC.
Article content
The account, which is run by an artificial intelligence bot, spits out more than 1,000 posts a day, responding to mentions of the Democratic nominee for mayor. The posts disparage Mamdani and his proposed policies while praising some of his political opponents.
Article content
Article content
Story continues below
Article content
But the person behind the bot isn’t in New York City, or even in the United States. He lives in Ottawa.
Article content
The Evening Citizen
Article content
Saihajpreet Singh is a 24-year-old software engineer who graduated from Carleton University two years ago and CityDeskNYC is just one of his AI bots looking to reshape political public relations.
Article content
Last year, Singh, who has been coding since he was seven years old, built an AI bot called DOGEai that posts around 2,000 times a day on X, with a right-wing MAGA flair and an output no human could match. DOGEai, which has amassed more than 127,000 followers, has criticized Democrats and applauded Donald Trump and his supporters, attracting retweets by the American president and his former ally Elon Musk.
Article content
For Singh, CityDeskNYC is a proof of concept AI bot that he hopes to monetize by eventually selling it to Mamdani’s political opponents.
Article content
Story continues below
Article content
“Many people hate me,” Singh told the Ottawa Citizen.
Article content
Read More
-
Spears: AI offered to write my book. How could I refuse?
-
Scammers now impersonating senior government officials and CEOs to swindle Canadians
-
Advertisement embed-more-topic
Story continues below
Article content
Singh’s accounts are part of an army of AI bots that have created an information ecosystem in support of Trump and the Republican Party on X. In the lead-up to last year’s presidential election, researchers at Clemson University identified a network of more than 680 AI-generated bot accounts on X that were pushing Trump’s agenda.
Article content
Singh, who moved to Ottawa in 2019 from Minnesota, claims he is not a propagandist, but a “technologist” who wants to show how AI can be leveraged for public relations. He said he would be open to working for campaigns across the political spectrum.
Article content
He added that he “does not discriminate” and that “the technology can help anyone.” But his known accounts have targeted progressive politicians and sought to aid conservative ones so far.
Article content
AI bot master as a side hustle
Article content
Singh first launched the AI behind DOGEai as a way to scrutinize legislation that was working its way through Congress during the latter half of then-president Joe Biden’s term in office, when the Democrats controlled the Senate and Republicans held the House.