Nancy Pelosi

State Sen. Scott Wiener pulled down a controversial artificial intelligence chatbot his campaign briefly rolled out last week imitating his rival, San Francisco Board of Supervisor Connie Chan, bowing to demands even after initially standing up to Rep. Nancy Pelosi over the campaign tactic.

Wiener’s campaign launched the website ConnieChan.ai last Monday, publishing the chatbot as a satirical nod to Chan’s track record. The site’s homepage said it was “the world’s first AI trained to say no to anything you ask,” and the chatbot would respond to questions you asked about Chan’s record. Wiener’s campaign promoted the website with $20,000 worth of billboards in San Francisco.

Wiener and Chan won the June primary and are now facing each other in November’s congressional race to replace Pelosi, who is retiring after 39 years in office.

Chan’s team immediately condemned the site, calling it an example that Wiener “is bought and paid for by Big AI.” They pointed to the fact that Wiener’s team used Claude, an Anthropic chatbot, to make the site, and that an Anthropic-funded PAC has committed to spending $500,000 to support his candidacy.

A few days after the now-defunct site went live, Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi blasted him on X, saying the site was a “gross misuse” of AI and “reflects a disturbing willingness to erase women’s agency.”

“AI-generated impersonation has no place in our politics,” she said. “The Wiener campaign should take down this chatbot. San Franciscans deserve campaigns that are honest, respectful, and focused on earning voters’ trust, not fabricating someone else’s words.”

Wiener initially stood his ground against Pelosi in an unusual move for a Democrat, who seldom push back against the former House leader. He said Pelosi was making “baseless” claims, and he defended the bot as “clearly a parody.”

“It is particularly ironic that Speaker Emerita Pelosi is expressing concern about AI, when [she] played a key role, aligned with Big Tech, in killing my landmark AI safety bill,” he said, referring to California Senate Bill 1047, a pro-regulation bill that would have made companies legally liable for any harms posed by their AI. Pelosi said it would stifle innovation.

But Wiener’s surprising resistance to Pelosi didn’t last long. By Friday afternoon, five days after the site launched, his campaign agreed to take the site down.

“Today, we are taking down the chatbot, and the billboards that promoted it will come down soon,” Wiener said in a statement sent out Friday afternoon. “Throughout my career, I’ve never been afraid to push the envelope, which means taking risks, sometimes succeeding, and sometimes missing the mark.”

Wiener acknowledged that the conversation around the chatbot became more about the tactic itself rather than the issues they were trying to get voters to pay attention to, like housing and affordable healthcare.

“I heard from many people who loved the idea, and I appreciate their support. But many others were offended, and I apologize for causing that offense,” he said.