Mark Sewards, the Labour MP for Leeds South West and Morley, has been the first MP to launch an AI chatbot replica of himself to answer questions from constituents. Susan Oman spoke to BBC news about the impact of AI on political trust.
Speaking to Tom Ingall from BBC Look North, Dr Susan Oman, Senior Lecturer in Data, AI and Society, talked about the risks of chatbot use.
“I think AI assistance in all jobs is inevitable, do we want an AI MP in entirety? Perhaps we are a bit further away from that as an inevitability.
“One of the things that is interesting about this use of AI is that there aren’t necessarily the guardrails in place that there would be, so it feels quite exploratory at this stage.”
"They may not realise they're chatting to a bot and often think they are chatting to a real person”
In a BBC News article, Susan spoke about what this could mean for trust in politicians.
"When it comes to the general public and how they speak about politicians, the trust in them gets worse and worse.
“There is the risk here that as an MP you are trying to be more efficient and more present for your constituents, but the knock-on effect is they feel less listened to.
"They may not realise they're chatting to a bot and often think they are chatting to a real person”
Watch the BBC Look North interview below.
