By Kemol King
For some time now, budget debates (and other public parliamentary events) have struggled to live up to their purpose.
Long before ChatGPT entered the picture, budget debates had already devolved into political theatre. It took a turn for the worse when social media usage expanded, making it possible for everyone to view the budget debates and other public parliamentary exercises from the comfort of their living room, bedside or toilet seat. Giving the public an easy-to-access live feed is not a bad thing, but it seems to have bludgeoned the quality of proceedings.
Today, the revolution of generative artificial intelligence (AI) is dragging the already farcical affair of budget debates to lower lows and threatens to redefine Guyana’s political zeitgeist unless something is done about it. What it does currently is make the problem louder and harder to ignore.
It is no secret that most people will be moved more by performances on their TV, smartphone, or computer screens. Performance defines the politics of the 21st century. MPs appear to be using the stage less to interrogate the budget in good faith, and more to score points against each other. Government speakers discuss the opposition’s failures. Opposition speakers discuss the government’s sins. Not enough time is spent on the veracity of the ideas, assumptions or projections the Finance Minister outlines. MPs are no longer REALLY speaking to the Chair or to each other. They are speaking to Facebook, to Youtube, to WhatsApp groups. Everyone is looking for headlines and, as Gen Z will tell you, aura-farming.
AI is not inherently bad. It is a tool, and like any tool, its value depends on how it is used. But it is increasingly being used as a stand-in for thinking in public-facing writing. People make AI-generated social media posts as if they are their own thoughts. They reply to serious issues with AI-generated commentary. The society, at large, has been quietly infected by the manufactured incompetence that comes with ChatGPT.
Parliament has not been spared by this invasion.
It is plainly obvious that several MPs are relying on AI to write their speeches. Anyone whose job involves reading, writing, and editing for a living, and engaging with these products regularly, recognises the rhythm immediately.
While human speech is often emphatic and messy in structure, AI writes in symmetrical styles. It speaks in abstractions. It lacks cultural context unless it is so fed. Its sentences and paragraphs reflect smoothness and polish that are hollow.
Using AI to assist with drafting is not, by itself, unacceptable. It is over-reliance that is the problem. Budget speeches are supposed to reflect the judgment of the person delivering it. AI writing simulates understanding. It allows an MP to sound informed without having studied the budget and its estimates.
Such practices allow MPs to detach themselves from responsibility in a House they are barely ever required to attend every year. Parliament still looks busy. The speeches are still long. The language is still confident. But the thinking is outsourced. The Speaker would do well to enforce, more strictly, the over-reliance on reading of speeches on the floor of the House to address this risk.
The issue is not evenly distributed. Experienced MPs, particularly on the government side, tend to know their material. Their speeches, whatever one thinks of their politics, reflect familiarity with the machinery of the state and a confidence they have built over time. They do not need AI to prop them up.
On the other hand, it is apposite to note that the country spent five years watching their hands fall, due to the disappointing work of the opposition of the 12th Parliament, ending in the major opposition parties of the last term being cast down and replaced with We Invest in Nationhood (WIN). To have Azruddin Mohamed’s MPs read in styles that mirror that of AI simply makes the incompetence the people voted to get rid of, much easier to get away with as new people occupy those seats.
To be clear, this judgment about MPs and AI use is probabilistic. One cannot definitively say, without objective proof, that certain MPs are using AI to write their speeches. What can be said, with certainty, is that with the popularity of generative AI products, the speeches delivered by MPs have taken on an all too familiar rhythm and style. Anything else is a matter of opinion, no matter how informed.
Budget debates are supposed to be one of the few moments in the parliamentary process when MPs engage seriously with substance. This is where the representatives of the people show that they understand the consequences of spending decisions on the country.
Parliament was already substantially failing at what it was meant to do. AI has just made that failure harder to dress up as intellectual debate.
