Editor’s Note: The following is a media release from “PoliticoAI,” a Toronto-based Web3/Generative AI startup which was sent to the Arthur editors’ email address earlier this week. Arthur attempted to solicit the company’s Public Relations Secretary for an interview, but received only a series of obviously AI-generated emails in response.

In the absence of being able to interview the company in question about their plans to implement their product in Peterborough, Arthur has elected to reproduce their press release in full below.

Arthur does not take any responsibility for any of the spelling mistakes or ideological ramifications of the content therein.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

KOUNSELL: A Better Way to Do Politics.

Tuesday, May 13th, Peterborough.

In many ways the most intimate form of policy and governance, municipal politics are no stranger to scandal, public scrutiny, and other forms of bureaucratic overreach which serve to impede the function and profitability of local governments.

City councillors have a demonstrated tendency of voting in favour of their own personal interests, as well as getting embroiled in public scandals which incite potential liabilities and bring unwanted attention from constituents. These sorts of occurrences, in turn, can significantly impede the productivity of municipal decision-making.

That’s why we’re pleased to announce that we are partnering with the City of Peterborough to implement KOUNSELL, a new pilot project which will revolutionize the way we conduct business at the municipal level.

KOUNSELL is a cloud-based, blockchain-enabled, artificially-intelligent large language model capable of processing municipal documents, motions, By-law proposals, budget reports, and constituent feedback in order to make methodical, computed decisions representing the quantitative best case for municipal affairs.

KOUNSELL is intelligent, adaptive, and, unlike conventional human politicians, is completely infallible in its decision making. It is unable to be bribed or threatened, and can readily synthesize information which it’s provided to make a rational, budget-conscious decision within seconds of being prompted.

Starting Summer 2025, Peterborough City Council will begin trial integration of the KOUNSELL large language model into municipal affairs including—but not limited to—voting on motions and By-laws, chairing council meetings, and approving the 2026 Draft Budget.

While the idea of largely off-loading the duties of municipal government onto an artificial intelligence might seem off-putting to some people, KOUNSELL offers a number of dramatic benefits over conventional human city councillors.

Here are just a few of the things at which KOUNSELL excels where conventional, human councillors tend to falter:

1. Time Management.

Traditional council meetings, with their opportunities for deliberation and constituent feedback, are notorious for frequently taking an exceptionally long team to reach a consensus. KOUNSELL eliminates this bureaucracy entirely, drastically reducing the amount of time devoted to needless bickering and the airing of worthless opinions.

At the beginning of every KOUNSELL-enabled meeting, the model is fed the agenda for the meeting alongside any relevant staff reports. After it has analyzed the contents of the documents provided, the model can be prompted to provide a Yay/Nay decision for each motion proposed in the agenda, cutting procedural downtime out of the voting process.

The average time of a KOUNSELL-enabled meeting is just fifteen minutes, compared to the mean 1.5 hours with human councillors (the bulk of which is just people talking).

2. Competence.

Part of what makes human-based councils archaic is the fact that their effectiveness relies principally on the competence of the people elected to them. Human councillors are fallible—they get sick, they don’t bother to read committee reports, they vote for the wrong thing by accident.

As KOUNSELL is not human, it is immune to these shortcomings. The KOUNSELL model is capable of reading a 400-page staff report in under three minutes. As a large language model, KOUNSELL never takes sick days, and as it possesses no margin for error, KOUNSELL is never wrong.

3. Cost-effectiveness.

Councillor compensation has been a hot-button topic lately, which has revealed one thing: paying city councillors costs money.
KOUNSELL remedies this issue, as it does not need to be provided a salary, as it is a large language model.

Instead, KOUNSELL-enabled cities can subscribe to access the model for the economical price of 1% of the municipal operating budget (adjusted for inflation), per month—plus relevant add-on expenses as required—which is far more reasonable than paying a human councillor to do the same job poorly.

The only additional operating cost beside is the cost of electricity and fresh water expended by running the KOUNSELL large language model, all of which can be amortized over the yearly operating budget as part of tax-funded expenses.‍

4. Ethics.

One of the least-considered impediments which human politicians inevitably bring to the job is a moral compass.
Whether Roman Catholics, classical liberals, or dyed-in-the-wool relativists, city councillors each bring a unique perspective and set of beliefs about what exactly constitutes ethical conduct. This ultimately proves a massive detriment to making informed, rational, and business-minded decisions for the betterment of the city, as councils instead become distracted with questions about social services and safety nets.

Unlike human councillors, KOUNSELL is able to see the bigger picture, thereby not compromising the sanctity of its decision over such things as arbitrary personal codes.
Instead, KOUNSELL is programmed to make the most cost-effective decision possible in a given situation, acting in the best interest of the average Peterborough resident to reduce the tax burden by discretionary programs and redundant social services such as municipal funding grants and housing initiatives.

With the tax burden reduced, residents will be free to pursue home ownership and productive contribution to the local economy, instead of draining municipal resources through programs which don’t recoup their initial investments.

5. Accountability.

Chief among constituent complaints directed at conventional human-populated municipal governments is transparency and accountability. To many who don’t keep up with their city council, the decision making processes which councils employ can seem opaque and mercurial, and constituents and councillors alike prove to have difficulty remembering exactly what it is that they voted for.

KOUNSELL eliminates these obstructions by storing all of its decisions on the blockchain. Not only does this make them readily accessible for future reference by constituents curious about a decision-making outcome, it equally means they can be cross-referenced by the KOUNSELL model in the process of making future decisions.

Not only is this model radically transparent, it ensures that KOUNSELL is always learning. The more decisions the model confirms, the greater its decision-making algorithm is biased towards precedence, meaning that KOUNSELL inevitably becomes more correct over time.

Because KOUNSELL is self-correcting, there is no need for human oversight or interference in its decision making process. The decisions it reaches represent the absolute best course of action, and to suggest otherwise would not only be misinformed, but equally illegal under the proposed amendments to Municipal By-law B-15529H26.

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As you can see, we at PoliticoAI have thought long and hard about implementing a reasonable and future-proof strategy for municipal governance informed by a commitment to the burgeoning Web3 economy.

A KOUNSELL-enabled Peterborough will be regarded as not only the most ethical municipality in all of Southern Ontario, but the most efficient one as well. With KOUNSELL at the helm of important municipal decisions, residents will be afforded more time to do the things they love, like going to work, parking in the downtown core, and buying property.

Stay tuned for our White Paper, coming Q3 2025.

In response to a request for comment from Arthur, the City of Peterborough announced that “The City of Peterborough looks forward to a long and fruitful partnership with KOUNSELL and PoliticoAI. Constituents are invited to a symposium demonstration of this exciting new initiative at the Canadian Canoe Museum next week at 5:00 PM. Due to new changes to the City’s Official Plan developed in conjunction with KOUNSELL, refreshments will not be provided.”