An aide to Andy Burnham has been accused of asking ChatGPT to tweak one of the prime minister's speeches while sipping prosecco on a train. The unnamed Downing Street speechwriter was photographed reading through the AI chatbot's suggestions for making the PM's words more 'emotive'.
Photos taken on train to Welsh Labour Conference
According to the Mail on Sunday, the pictures were taken on the 5.03pm train from London Euston to Holyhead on Friday as Burnham and his team headed to the Welsh Labour conference with a bottle of bubbly. An image of the aide's phone screen shows ChatGPT providing feedback on a passage criticising the legacy of Margaret Thatcher.
The lines commented on Thatcher's impact on 'working men's clubs, choirs and other social infrastructure' in the 1980s. 'I prefer the second [passage]. It moves from the miners to their families to the wider community, showing how the experience of industrial work created bonds well beyond the workplace,' the bot said.
Speech delivered at Llandudno conference
Burnham's speech was later delivered at the Welsh Labour Conference in Llandudno, in northern Wales. The PM said Thatcher 'shattered the way of life for communities up and down Britain' with 'mines closed, factories closed, steelworks silenced'. He did not use the specific passage seen in the pictures taken of the aide's phone.
A No 10 spokesperson said: 'The PM writes most of his own speeches. An aide sought feedback on a speech draft that had already been written.'
Burnham addresses Labour's loss in Wales
Elsewhere in his speech, Burnham addressed Labour's loss of power in Wales following elections earlier this year. He said: 'Somewhere along the way, perhaps we lost sight of some of the principles that drove devolution in the first place. Probably stopped listening as much as we should have, and actually stopped driving power right down into every Welsh postcode, which is what the vision really, to me, should always have been about, about people and places.'
'So for the first time its history, Labour is not leading the Welsh Government, and that's a hard thing for us all to have to accept.'
AI use in politics draws scrutiny
The use of ChatGPT and other AI chatbots by politicians and their aides has drawn plenty of attention since the tech first emerged earlier this decade. Addressing the House of Commons last year, Conservative MP Tom Tugendhat blasted colleagues for supposedly using AI to write their own speeches – saying the phrase 'I rise to speak' is a giveaway.
He said: 'On the other side, all we're hearing is the ChatGPT generated press releases. I rise to speak. I rise to speak. I rise to speak. ChatGPT knows you're there, but that is an Americanism that we don't use, but still, keep using it, because it makes it clear that this place has become absurd.'
