Republican Senator Brags About Long Brainstorm Sessions With AI Chatbot: ‘Like You Can Sit There and Talk to an Expert’

Screenshot via CSPAN

Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) uses AI to kill time on his long drives and have in-depth discussions about healthcare policy.

The Washington Post published a report this week on the various ways AI technology is being implemented by lawmakers, with little to no regulation on its use in Congress. Staffers spoke about using the technology to help draft legislation, create new speeches for lawmakers, and more.

Tuberville shared his own experience with AI chatbots, bragging it’s like talking to an “expert” about Medicare and Medicaid while he takes long drives in Alabama.

“It’s kind of like you can sit there and talk to an expert,” he said. “You don’t know whether or not they’re 100 percent correct. But they put you on the right path.”

Rep. Mike Flood (R-NE) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) also used AI resources for background on legislation, with Flood using a chatbot to work on a housing bill and Warren using it to look up demographic information.

There is no overall policy for Congress on AI, but some individual offices have set up their own policies. Some lawmakers have banned or restricted the use of AI by their staff, while others give them permission to use it however they see fit.

Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) has her staff take AI training and sets up guardrails, telling them only to use it to “enhance and streamline” work.

“We didn’t want to prohibit the use of the newest tools, but we also didn’t want absolute schlock showing up in my memos,” she said. “What I’m not willing to do is put my head in the sand and pretend that my young staff aren’t going to find new and interesting ways of doing this.”

One staffer described feeding their boss’s past statements into AI to create floor speeches and op-eds. Another with stricter limits in their office expressed jealousy, imagining the content they could spit out with AI if not for their boss’s anti-AI stance.

“We could churn out so many op-eds if we were more comfortable with AI,” she said.

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