As AI tools have become more and more common, their use has also found its way into politics.
The proportion of parliamentary motions that show traces of AI assistance has increased from a few to one in ten over the past four years, according to a study from Chalmers University of Technology and Edinburgh Napier University.
In the last parliamentary year, there were approximately 300 motions with at least one piece of AI-assisted content.
“Relevant question”
However, none of the motions contain any information that AI was used.
What is remarkable is not primarily that more and more politicians seem to be using AI, but that no one says they are using AI, says Mattias Wahde, a professor at Chalmers.
It will ultimately be a question of trust, according to the researchers.
We can see that AI tools have become increasingly popular. But our point is not the use of AI per se, but the lack of transparency, says Minerva Suvanto.
According to studies from, for example, the SOM Institute here in Gothenburg, this is a relevant question for voters. So indicating whether AI has been used or not is also part of using these tools responsibly.
No party differences
To find AI content in the motions, the two research groups developed customised AI detectors - one for Swedish and one for English - and trained them on thousands of political motions in Sweden and the UK.
There do not appear to be any major differences in the use of AI between countries, or between different parties. The lack of transparency was also consistent, according to Minerva Suvanto.
We can't see if they used AI for the entire text, or just used AI to go over the grammar, for example. But that's also why there's a point in including information about the use of AI at the end of the exercises, she says.
The proportion of motions to the Swedish Parliament that were written with AI assistance, or contain at least one paragraph with AI-assisted content:
2022–2023: 0.1 percent and 1.7 percent, respectively.
2023–2024: 1.9 percent and 4.1 percent, respectively.
2024-2025: 4.7 percent and 8 percent, respectively.
2025–2026: 6.5 percent and 9.4 percent, respectively.
Source: Chalmers University of Technology.
