I spoke to the AI avatar of a Leeds MP. How did it cope with my own Yorkshire accent? | Artificial intelligence (AI)

As anyone with even a trace of a regional dialect who has had to pay a parking fine can attest, voice recognition services struggle with accents. Now, people in Mark Sewards’ constituency in Leeds are likely to find the same problem with his AI variant.

A chatbot, billed as the first AI version of an MP, responds in Sewards’s voice with advice, support or by offering to pass on a message to his team – but only if it understands you.

The website, a virtual representation of the MP for Leeds South West and Morley complete with a Pixar-style cartoon, was launched by a local startup to field questions from his constituents – some of whom have broad Leeds accents.

So I was interested to see how “Sewardsbot” would handle a conversation with someone from only a couple of miles away…