Artificial intelligence is infiltrating the political world, as legislatures around the world work to adopt new tech tools and ensure lawmakers are in charge of the machines rather than the other way around.
Brazil is experimenting with facial recognition for legislators to work remotely, Finnish policymakers interrogated AI personalities at a hearing, and Singapore built its own AI model into legislators’ government-issued laptops, according to a new POPVOX Foundation study.
POPVOX, a nonprofit aiming to improve governments’ understanding of technology, investigated the adoption of AI tools by lawmakers worldwide and found the U.S. Congress is actively working to incorporate new generative AI. The group has trained congressional staffers on the ins and outs of generative AI products and closely monitors guidance distributed from Capitol Hill.
“With the ongoing advancements in large language models and AI tools, and the growing interest in AI applications within legislative contexts, there is an expectation of more comprehensive AI integration in parliaments in 2024 and beyond,” POPVOX’s report said.
Artificial intelligence is a field of science and engineering that uses advanced computing and statistical analysis to accomplish complicated tasks. In Brazil, that means lawmakers are toying with new “computer vision” and machine learning tools.
Brazilian lawmakers are experimenting with facial recognition technology to verify their identity for the legislature’s electronic voting systems. POPVOX found Brazil’s legislature is also piloting AI chatbots for citizens to converse with when they want to know more about about legislators, bills, budget data and other public information.
POPVOX said Brazil’s machine learning-powered platform Ulysses tags large volumes of data and then allows the voters to express their opinions on proposed legislation. It has already attracted up to 30,000 comments on an individual bill.
Finnish lawmakers are also demanding answers from AI — literally. The Finnish Parliament’s Committee for the Future conducted a 2021 hearing where members questioned two AI “personalities,” Muskie and Saara, and got written responses.
“This initiative’s purpose was to explore the potential of AI in providing perspectives and information, and the technology’s ability to formulate arguments and counterarguments, akin to the contributions of human experts,” the nonprofit’s report said.
A recent report by the consulting firm Deloitte described how European researchers used AI machine-learning models to predict how business and consumers would likely react to different policies to regulate the Irish economy.
“For example, researchers can examine if different funding methods or tax incentives would help support the creation of new small businesses in a specific city or high-tech industry,” the Deloitte study noted. “Such models could be of great benefit as a government examines which policies could help spur domestic semiconductor manufacturing or other advanced technologies.”
That doesn’t rule out the need for legislators to make their own decisions, the study noted.
Machine-learning models “can uncover hidden outcomes of policies or programs, but only humans can decide if those outcomes would qualify as successes or failures.”
AI has not replaced expert human witnesses quite yet. But Estonia’s use of an AI system called HANS to transcribe parliamentary meetings “led to a reduction in staff, particularly in replacing the Parliament’s team of stenographers, who were nearing retirement and difficult to replace,” according to the POPVOX study.
Time and money
Other parliaments are incorporating AI tools that may make clerical tasks cheaper and more efficient. Singapore’s “Pair” suite of tech tools on government-issued laptops promises to harness AI models’ capabilities without giving away government secrets.
“Pair operates on a question-answer mechanism, akin to a secure and swift version of ChatGPT tailored for public officers,” POPVOX’s report said. “It has received clearance from Singapore’s Smart Nation Digital Government Office for use with documents up to the Restricted/Sensitive Normal classification, and its ‘bring your own data’ feature allows officers to integrate personal datasets, enhancing its adaptability and relevance.”
Concerns about AI technology’s security and effects on the workforce are among the potential pitfalls that are sparking hestitations worldwide about embracing the technology uncritically. AI was a dominant theme at this year’s summit of global government and business leaders in Davos, Switzerland.
Chinese Premier Li Qiang called AI a “double-edged sword” in a Davos speech on Tuesday and indicated that the communist regime wants to ramp up its communication with other nations on rules to govern the use of powerful AI technologies.
“Human beings must control the machines instead of having the machines control us,” he said. He argued that a new red line was needed for AI development without fully explaining where to draw it.
Congress has spent months studying potential rules for AI and has yet to answer big questions about how to regulate AI development and deployment without constraining the commercial prospects of the new technology.
While the lawmaking process labors on, POPVOX Director of Government Innovation Aubrey Wilson said Congress is actually ahead of the curve in adopting new AI tools itself. She said the COVID pandemic helped many on Capitol Hill get comfortable using new tech, kicking off a major shift in how lawmakers do their job..
“For the first time ever, in what we think is this huge technological advancement, Congress is part of the story. They’re in the race, especially the House,” Ms. Wilson said. “They’re not behind. Congress isn’t behind in its advancement of, and adoption of, and exploration of this technology.”
Congress’ willingness to grapple with the new technology is likely also born out of necessity. For example, IBM CEO Arvind Krishna warned the Davos forum that people in every industry need to adapt or get left behind.
“If you embrace AI, you’re going to make yourself a lot more productive,” he said. “If you do not, … you’re going to find that you do not have a job.”
• This article was based in part on wire service reports.
• Ryan Lovelace can be reached at rlovelace@washingtontimes.com.