During Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s incapacity, we learned that her office was running as usual. So was Sen. Fetterman’s office. Staffers went on issuing press releases, taking positions and co-sponsoring bills on their behalf.
Senator Feinstein just introduced the Women’s Health Protection Act of 2023 to mandate abortion nationwide while outlawing state restrictions on late-term abortion when babies can feel pain… but Feinstein isn’t really introducing or sponsoring bills, her staffers, who announced her retirement without her knowing about it, are legislating in her name.
This is routine. Our government isn’t run by elected officials. And sometimes the elected officials aren’t even there. It’s just AI.
Susan Zhuang, who was elected to represent a newly created Asian-majority district in southern Brooklyn, admitted she uses popular AI tools like ChatGPT after being confronted by The Post about AI-generated answers she submitted for a recent Q and A interview with the media outlet City & State.
When asked, “What makes someone a New Yorker?” Zhaung sent back a 101-word response that began with, “New York City, the concrete jungle where dreams come true. It’s not just a place, it’s a state of mind. Being a New Yorker means having an unstoppable hustle, unbreakable resilience and unrivaled independence. …”
Hank Sheinkopf, a longtime New York-based Democratic political consultant, said he’s heard of elected officials using AI for campaigning — but never to respond to general questions from reporters or other members of the public. He fears it “could be the wave of the future.”
“It is very troubling,” he said. “We’d be better off with robots in public office – at least we would know what we got.”
I guess. Between staffers and AI, to what extent do we even have anything resembling the government envisioned by the Founding Fathers?
Susan Zhuang may not actually speak English, so she’s using AI to spit out cliches.
Zhuang, who speaks fluent Mandarin, later texted a reporter a prepared statement saying “as an immigrant and Brooklyn’s first Chinese-American Councilwoman, I, like many of my fellow immigrants, use AI as a tool to help foster deeper understanding as well as for personal growth, particularly when English is not my primary language.”
Creating formulaic answers using AI absolutely deepens understanding.
If we’re going to have politicians who are really a combination of their staffers and AI, what sort of government do we even have?
