Susan Zhuang, a NYC politician who represents the southern portion of New York City, was recently criticized after the New York Post confronted her concerning the use of AI to help with translation.
The New York Post sent the NYC politician a question that asked “What makes someone a New Yorker” and the response that she gave made people suspicious.
“New York City, the concrete jungle where dreams come true. It’s not just a place, it’s a state of mind. Being a New Yorker means having an unstoppable hustle, unbreakable resilience, and unrivaled independence,” the response said.
The New York Post then put the response through Copyleak to test for similarity to AI and it came back with a 99% match, proving that the answer she gave was generated by AI.
Zhuang first denied the use of AI and blamed her team members, however, she retracted her statement when she texted a reporter “As an immigrant and Brooklyn’s first Chinese-American Councilwoman, I, like many of my fellow immigrants, use AI as a tool to help foster deeper understanding as well as for personal growth, particularly when English is not my primary language.”
This brought up some concern for people who voted for her, while competitors ran with this statement. “If she can’t answer questions on her own, how can we expect her to represent the district? Is she going to use the internet and computer programs to write her bills, too?” says Ying Tan, who ran against Susan Zhuang.
Some people did say that this wasn’t much different if she’d had a staff member write it for her the same way many other politicians have. Some people stated that the problem was more so that she didn’t read and edit it to sound like her, not that she used AI in the first place.
“If a staffer writes this or an AI does, what is the difference? The councilwoman should have reviewed the statement and made sure it was clearly in her voice, but otherwise it’s a distinction without a difference.”
Overall, many are not surprised she used AI, and many have said that this may be the future of speechwriting for politicians as well as for answering questions posed by journalists.
