{"id":8776,"date":"2026-02-16T14:50:51","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T19:50:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/stillmanexchange\/?p=8776"},"modified":"2026-02-16T14:50:51","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T19:50:51","slug":"ai-quietly-being-used-in-legislation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/stillmanexchange\/2026\/02\/16\/ai-quietly-being-used-in-legislation\/","title":{"rendered":"AI Quietly Being Used In Legislation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kevin Abbaszadeh
\nTechnology Editor<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Artificial intelligence is already part of the lawmaking process\u2026 right now. Governments are using AI tools to summarize bills, scan massive amounts of public comments, flag legal risks, and assist with early drafting. This is happening quietly, with little public disclosure.<\/p>\n

In places like the United States Congress, lawmakers deal with thousands of pages of legislation and millions of citizen submissions. AI helps sort and compress that information. The problem is simple: when AI decides what gets summarized, flagged, or ignored, it shapes what lawmakers actually see. That ends up being influence, even if it\u2019s indirect.<\/p>\n

AI systems aren\u2019t neutral. They rely on training data and assumptions built by humans. If they\u2019re trained on past legislation or historical enforcement data, they tend to reinforce existing norms and power structures. New or unpopular viewpoints are more likely to be filtered out as \u201coutliers\u201d or \u201clow relevance.\u201d No one votes on that decision, and most people don\u2019t even know it\u2019s happening.<\/p>\n

Transparency is the biggest issue. There is rarely a clear statement saying a bill analysis or policy recommendation was generated or assisted by AI. Voters assume humans reviewed everything. That assumption is often wrong. When AI tools are involved, there\u2019s no clear line of accountability if bad laws pass or important warnings are missed.<\/p>\n

Other governments are moving even faster. The European Union already uses automated systems for regulatory impact assessments and policy modeling. These tools influence which proposals move forward and which die early. Again, the process is mostly invisible to the public.<\/p>\n

Supporters argue this is just efficiency. But efficiency changes outcomes. If an AI tool filters public comments, it can quietly reduce the impact of dissent. If it flags certain language as risky, it can shape how laws are written before debate even begins.<\/p>\n

The risk isn\u2019t AI replacing lawmakers. It\u2019s AI becoming an unexamined layer between the public and the people writing the laws. Once that layer is normalized, it\u2019s hard to remove.<\/p>\n

If AI is helping shape legislation, the public should know where, how, and to what extent. Laws don\u2019t need to be written by machines to be influenced by them. And influence without transparency is a problem\u2026 even when it\u2019s convenient.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Contact Kevin at kevin.abbaszadeh@student.shu.edu<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Artificial intelligence is already part of the lawmaking process\u2026 right now. Governments are using AI tools to summarize bills, scan massive amounts of public comments, flag legal risks, and assist with early drafting. This is happening quietly, with little public disclosure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5828,"featured_media":8778,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,2],"tags":[254,481,372,69,562,210,1609,18],"class_list":["post-8776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology","category-trending","tag-nationalnews","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-economy","tag-february","tag-government","tag-legislation","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/stillmanexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/stillmanexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/stillmanexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/stillmanexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5828"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/stillmanexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8776"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/stillmanexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8776\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8842,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/stillmanexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8776\/revisions\/8842"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/stillmanexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/stillmanexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/stillmanexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/stillmanexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}