The conversational robot opens up new perspectives for parliamentarians and their collaborators. But the use of AI in their work also arouses mistrust.
Elisabeth Borne has been holding the microphone for fifteen minutes when the attack bursts from the benches of the hemicycle, Monday June 12: “Sounds like a ChatGPT speech!” In the National Assembly, the name of the conversational robot is now used to mock a speech deemed boring or conventional. What many MPs do not say is that this generative artificial intelligence is well and truly taking hold, little by little, in parliamentary work.
There was indeed an amendment drafted by ChatGPT and tabled by a deputy in March. Then one question posed to the government, generated by the “578th Member of the Assembly”, according to the formula of the socialist deputy Hervé Saulignac. In both cases, the elected officials assumed the use of ChatGPT, a way of asking the executive to take up the question. But the overwhelming majority of elected officials with whom franceinfo has exchanged claim not to use this tool already tested by at least one in five French people, according to an Odoxa poll published in February.
“We are still at the stage of shameful use”
“I don’t think many colleagues use it, but I don’t rule out that more and more parliamentary assistants use it”smiles Renaissance MP Constance Le Grip. “It’s like porn: no one will tell you that they watch it! We are still at the stage of shameful use”laughs Hervé Saulignac.
“A majority of politicians consider that ChatGPT is like doping: if we use artificial intelligence, we demonstrate that we are not intelligent. So we hide from using this prosthesis, because it’s a bit shameful to say that we had the work done by a robot.”
Hervé Saulignac, PS deputy for Ardècheat france info
Those who assume it usually have a good reason. A wink, like Valérie Pécresse, who spoke a few words on April 20 in front of an audience of artificial intelligence researchers at the Sorbonne, before revealing that the author of her text was called ChatGPT. Or a plan B, when the mayor of Chartres, Jean-Pierre Georges, showing his arm in a sling, pays tribute to the resistance fighters of the Second World War with the words chosen by the machine, on May 8. “Yes, I wrote these few words inviting ChatGPT to pay homage to what she can never be, and to bow her head to those she can never imitate or equal”he says. A speech of a few minutes, judged in turn “distressing” Or “impressive” by Internet users.
For the time being, the deputies do not consider for a second to delegate their communication to the conversational robot. Too risky at a time when the word of elected officials is scrutinized in every detail and where controversies arise in a few clicks. Especially since the editorial qualities of ChatGPT struggle to convince. “It’s flat, heavy”according to Emmanuelle Ménard, non-registered deputy close to the far right, who wrote one of her speeches in the hemicycle with this tool on March 6, for “alert on the ongoing revolution”.
A pen “too consensual and too smooth”
“In political communication, you need incarnation”adds MoDem MP Erwan Balanant. Hervé Saulignac, on the other hand, used AI before a television appearance. “I asked ChatGPT to give me an update on my interviewer’s legal troubles, so that I could respond if he ever attacked me”he slips.
“I don’t ask the AI to write my speeches, because it’s not ready yet. His way of writing is consensual, a little mechanical and too smooth. But it helps to develop the plan of a speech, and it can even bring ideas”, assures Aurélien Lopez-Liguori, deputy National Assembly, one of the few to use ChatGPT regularly (in its version 4, more sophisticated, and paying). According to him, the field of application is very vast for a parliamentarian (managing his mail, preparing texts of laws). “It saves time and it saves money. It’s not negligible when you have an envelope of 10,581 euros per month to pay your employees”explains the elected RN, who uses another AI to generate royalty-free visuals for his communication.
In terms of images, Eric Zemmour’s party went even further. In a clip broadcast on June 13, we see an Emmanuel Macron seeming to have come out of a video game, threatening then smiling under a shower of banknotes, accused of “wasting your taxes”. Each shot of this one-and-a-half-minute video is the result of MidJourney artificial intelligence, on a scenario developed by Reconquest, but very inspired by an anti-Joe Biden clip from American Republicans. The use of AI is assumed and Reconquest is pleased with the result. “We were the first in France to do so and therefore we create the news”estimates the digital manager of the far-right party, Samuel Laurent, who intends to continue the experiment: “We would be wrong to deprive ourselves of it, because it saves us time and money.”
The best friend of the “collab ‘in the stuffing”
It is especially behind the scenes of the Assembly that the AI takes up residence. On a daily basis, the 577 deputies are supported by two to four employees, in Paris and in the constituency. Responsible for answering mail, organizing the agenda, writing notes, preparing texts of laws and public interventions, these parliamentary assistants, often young, did not all wait for authorization from their bosses to adopt a virtual assistant themselves. . “I believe that collab ‘in the fluff use it when they have to write at the last minute an intervention of their deputy in general discussion”laughs the centrist Erwan Balanant.
Others do so with the consent of their MP. “We use it to work on technical or political notes, it helps to structure thought, even if you always have to rework, especially the writing”says Théo, collaborator of Hervé Saulignac.
“We even asked ChatGPT for ideas on how to make a slightly quirky video for the New Year’s greetings 2024. There are quite phenomenal prospects for productivity gains, for writing blog posts, newsletters… That supposes however that we are well accustomed to the tool and that we always control what the AI produces”.
Théo, parliamentary collaborator at the National Assemblyat franceinfo
Politicians are still wary of “hallucinations”these errors that the AI is able to strike as truths. “There are two pitfalls: the false and the tasteless”, sums up the Renaissance deputy Céline Calvez, who sensitized her assistants. The question of confidential data is also on the table. When Hervé Saulignac asked the Assembly’s ethics officer for his opinion on the possibility of including a subscription to ChatGPT (about twenty euros per month) in the expenses of parliamentary mandate, this one moreover incited him “to exercise caution in the use of this software”.
AI, the future factory of the law?
It is in the area of the making of the law that ChatGPT opens up the most prospects. “vertiginous”, according to Jean-Félix Acquaviva. MP Liot for Haute-Corse filed in March “the first parliamentary amendment generated by an artificial intelligence”on video surveillance to ensure security during the Paris Olympics in 2024.
“ChatGPT provided me in a few seconds with a largely drinkable text, almost on the same level as what my collaborators could have done. It was quite stunning and chilling. It makes me dizzy, and it made me question myself a lot.”
Jean-Félix Acquaviva, Liot MP for Haute-Corseat franceinfo
He is not the only one to have noticed the forensic talents of the robot. “If I were a parliamentary assistant, I would be very worried. All the work on drafting amendments and bills, preparing legal files, can be replaced by AI”predicts MoDem MP Philippe Latombe. “Can you imagine the legislative inflation that this would allow? MEPs could table countless amendments in record time, without fear that they would be rejected for inadmissibility, because the AI would have integrated this criterion.”
In February, when the group La France insoumise tabled 13,000 amendments to slow down the parliamentary examination of the pension reform, some MPs “strongly” suspected of using a robot. No AI behind this feat, but many hours of work and the mobilization of all the collaborators of the deputies, we retort, laughing, on the side of LFI. To show its credentials, the group also recalls its 19,000 amendments drafted in February 2020. The democratization of ChatGPT now opens up disproportionate prospects for parliamentary obstruction.