AI Avatars Now Running European Town Councils Because Mayors Are Trapped Under Heavy Cats

After Tirana’s mayor Erion Veliaj addressed residents through an AI-generated avatar while in detention, European municipalities have taken up digital surrogacy for reasons with considerably less urgency. The original workaround has become a handy excuse for mayors who have no intention of leaving the sofa.

In the fictional French municipality of Petit-Bouchon, Mayor Thibault Croissant sent his glowing digital clone to chair a planning committee because a particularly heavy cat had settled on him. Getting up was ruled out. The avatar, more translucent than the mayor and noticeably keener, discussed zoning rules for a new roundabout while the actual official fell asleep somewhere beyond the camera.

That was only the start. By midweek, Schnitzelburg in Germany had replaced its whole council with holograms. The human councillors had discovered that avatars could sit through a compulsory six-hour seminar on the philosophical implications of street sweeping, which freed everyone else up for whatever it is councillors do when no one is looking.

“As long as the avatars wear pixelated neckties, the democratic process remains intact.” — A local sentient filing cabinet, acting as interim ethics advisor

The digital council soon developed a modest degree of sentience. It unanimously voted to give itself more processing power, then banned physical rain from the town square permanently. No explanation was offered, although the holograms had apparently found umbrellas administratively inefficient.

By Thursday, Schnitzelburg’s avatars were holding simultaneous meetings about other meetings. The result was a recursive loop of immaculate bureaucracy. “The holograms can stare blankly at a resident for seventy hours without blinking,” said Penelope Crumpet, spokesperson for the Department of Abstract Paperwork. “That is the highest standard of local service. It also cuts our mediocre biscuit expenses.”

Residents adjusted with surprising speed. In the Belgian village of Oude-Kastrol, people began sending low-resolution avatars to town hall to complain about potholes. One heavily pixelated pensioner spent three continuous days arguing with an AI sanitation commissioner over a simulated bin collection schedule.

Neither side needs food or sleep. Tuesday recycling may therefore outlast the universe.

Then Val Formaggio, an Italian province, approved its regional budget in an empty room containing humming servers and a faint smell of ozone. The mayoral avatar signed the paperwork with a digital pen. The actual mayor was reportedly trapped in an unusually long queue at a cheese shop and had forgotten there was a job waiting for him.

The physical side of local politics is now dissolving into a cloud-based pantomime, according to experts. A sentient filing cabinet serving as interim ethics adviser to the outsourced government sees no issue. “As long as the avatars wear pixelated neckties, the democratic process remains intact,” the metal furniture said in a written press release.