When New Brunswick Progressive Conservative MLA Bill Oliver asked an AI chatbot to rewrite his legislative speech notes, it produced a 'more natural, flowing version of that section that reads like a legislative speech rather than a series of short points' — text he read aloud verbatim in the provincial legislature, prompting a viral backlash.
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Expert: Jon Gillham, CEO, Originality AI The incident is a textbook case of what AI-detection expert Jon Gillham calls 'AI residue' — and a warning about eroded public trust. 'The confidence at which the AI residue was spoken in a public setting is unique,' Gillham told Global News. 'I've not seen that before. I think that's certainly what helped make it go as viral as it did.' His firm Originality AI analyzed about 8,000 English-language speeches delivered in New Brunswick's legislature between 2022 and 2026 and found the share likely containing AI-generated text climbed from 3.3 per cent in 2022 to 21 per cent last year, and almost 23 per cent so far in 2026. On at least one occasion, a politician asked a prepared question and received a prepared response back, with analysis suggesting both were likely written with AI. 'So it was sort of political theatre with human actors reading AI narrative,' Gillham said. Green Party MLA Megan Mitton called the practice 'a disservice to their constituents': 'We're MLAs, we're not elected to come here and read AI-generated speeches. We're elected to be the voice of the people we represent, not the voice of AI.' Oliver acknowledged in a statement that he had not adequately reviewed the text before delivering it: 'When printing the final version of my speech, AI prompts were not removed, which were spoken by me and has caused much concern of many individuals.' Source: https://globalnews.ca/news/12001317/nb-legislature-ai-speech/
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