generated bills are reportedly causing problems in the Capitol
They’re so full of errors that Congressional lawyers are spending a lot of time trying to fix them, Politico says.
The House Office of Legislative Counsel is swamped with AI-generated bills that are riddled with wrong terms, incorrect citations and other mistakes, according to Politico. More and more representatives’ offices are using publicly available general AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude to write their legislative proposals. Politico’s sources said lawyers at the US House Office of Legislative Counsel (OLC) are spending more time to review and rewrite them than they would have if they had written the bills from scratch.
The sources explained that AI tools tend to miss nuances and tiny crucial details, which could have a huge effect on how a law is interpreted and enacted. Wade Ballou, who headed the office for almost 10 years until 2024, said AI can’t determine whether a pot of money should be a “tax credit, tax deduction, tax exclusion or a grant,” for instance. Sometimes, its classification of “state” only includes the 50 states, which would exclude DC and tribal nations from federal programs. A lawyer who worked with the office also told Politico that AI would incorrectly cite previous statutes in drafts.
AI-generated proposals are also creating a different kind of problem: Congressional staffers reportedly aren’t as deeply familiar with what their bills are about and hope to accomplish anymore. Because they use AI to draft their proposals, they’re not forced to “learn the issue as deeply.”
In order to keep up with the increasing workload brought about by AI-drafted bills, the OLC is, well… exploring the use of AI to “improve efficiencies.” A working group within the office has developed an AI tool called “Comparative Print Suite” that can help staffers visualize how a proposal will change current laws. Unlike general AI tools, it returns an error if it can’t figure out where changes in the proposal should be made, preventing hallucinations from making it into draft bills.
