Daniel Schuman had a problem. Schuman needed to prepare for a presentation, but like any other “lazy person” with a lot of other stuff to do, the policy director at Demand Progress didn’t want to put in the time and effort to write the darn thing. So he asked a bot to do it instead.
“My starting point for this presentation was to ask AI ‘how you can use AI,’” Schuman said Friday before a packed room of over 100 congressional staffers gathered to hear how artificial intelligence tools could help — or hurt — their work on the Hill.
Schuman used his prompts into ChatGPT, the experimental text-generating model from OpenAI, and its responses to demonstrate the technology’s promise and peril. The bot’s first bullet point of the pros — “ability to analyze vast amounts of data and inform in a timely manner” — was dead on, Schuman said. But it’s next — “can assist in drafting legislation” — was way off. “I don’t think that’s true at all,” he said.
