The first to come out with a confession was United States Democratic Representative for Massachusetts, Jake Auchinclos, on January 26, 2023. He became the first member of the US Congress to deliver an AI-written speech before the House of Representatives. A CNN report said Auchinclos’s speech was, aptly enough, in support of a measure to establish a joint AI research center to be run by the US and Israel.
Auchinclos’s speech written by ChatGPT, a text-based artificial intelligence, sounded direct, straightforward, and without emotion. It was based on the prompt fed to ChatGPT: “You are Jake Auchincloss, a Member of Congress. Write 100 words to deliver on the floor of the House of Representatives. Topic: the importance of the United States–Israel Artificial Intelligence Center Act, which the congressman will re-introduce this term.”
His speech stated that the proposed legislation “will cement a mutually beneficial partnership between the United States and Israel on artificial intelligence research” and how the collaboration will “ensure that the United States maintains a leadership role in AI research and development…” All sounds good but boring because ChatGPT’s response depends on the question or the prompt.
Auchinclos, in the CNN interview, also spoke of how AI can potentially be harmful and that there is a need to “counteract any kind of dystopian future.” He pushed for more players and said the technology should be made available to universities, non-profit organizations, small companies and public officials “so everybody can have a hand in shaping it, and it works for everybody.” The AI “is a tool, not a master,” and should amplify human creativity and productivity, “not allow it to create economic or social conditions that years from now we will try to change.”
The US legislator may not be the only public official to deliver an AI-written speech, but he was the first to admit it. It is tempting to think how the next government speech is factual and not made up since ChatGPT is a tool that responds based on the question it is fed and the data it can access.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is set to deliver his second State of the Nation Address at the House of Representatives on Monday, July 24, 2023. He promised that his speech will be a “very simple” performance report to Filipinos.
I don’t think his speechwriters will use ChatGPT as the text-based technology has limitations. If they do use the tool, they have to be transparent and have to acknowledge that it was written with the help of AI, as Auchinclos did after his speech, and that the report does not veer away from the truth.
There are ways to check if something was written by AI.