Liberal powerbroker's truly astonishing admission about her search for answers after election defeat exposes how clueless the party has become: 'Can't make this up'
Liberal senator Anne Ruston has come under fire for revealing she used artificial intelligence to find the policy shortfalls that cost her party the federal election.
Viewers of ABC Insiders on Sunday morning were shocked to hear Ruston admit she'd used 'off the shelf' AI to assess the reasons behind the loss.
Although she was unable to draw a 'clear theme' from her research, the online response to her interview made one thing clear: Aussies don't want AI in politics.
'Anne Ruston is aware that AI isn't magic right? She knows it's not an oracle?' one social media user wrote on X.
'Anne Ruston, Liberal Senator, tells ABC she has asked AI why the Liberal Party ran such a poor electoral campaign and lost the election. Is this more evidence the Liberal Party is now a political entity that can be best be described as having artificial intelligence?' another said.
'What a wooden, uninspiring interview with Anne Ruston. Even AI can't help here,' another wrote.
'They need to use AI because none of them show any intelligence at all!' another said.
'Senior Liberal Anne Ruston suggesting the Liberal party should ask AI to get a better handle on why the party failed at the last election. God forbid they talk to and believe what ordinary Aussies tell them,' another wrote.
Insiders host David Speers took his interview with Ruston as an opportunity to quiz her on what role AI could play in the Liberal party.
'Very interestingly, last week after the election result I just used some off the shelf AI to ask what AI thought about the Liberal Party and the election result,' Ruston said.
'More than anything, it showed me that there were so many different issues that Australians were considering when they went to the ballot box to vote.
'I think it shows us that we absolutely have to look at everything because there was no clear theme apart from, quite clearly, the Australian public went to the ballot box and didn't vote for us.'
When pressed more on whether she believed the best way for the party to analyse its election results was through AI, Ruston backtracked and said it could be used as part of a larger process.
'There's many ways that we need to address this,' she said.
'We need to speak to our party members, we need to speak to the front bench and the backbench. We need to speak to the Australian public.
'But, obviously technology gives us an opportunity to be able to collate the broader commentary across Australia, that's something that we haven't had access to before and we should use that as well.'
A parliamentary inquiry in October 2024 released a report regarding the effects of AI on Australian democratic processes.
It found AI could be used to 'help voters better understand political debates, legislation and policy proposals, and to undertake data analysis'.
However, it also carried several risks included the creation of fake political content - such as videos and speeches through deepfakes, the spread of political disinformation, and sharing its own biases.
The committee made several recommendations on how the government could safeguard against these risks, including enforcing mandatory watermarks on AI-generated content.
It also called on politicians to voluntarily disclose their use of AI.
'The ANU Tech Policy Design Centre noted that politicians had an important role to play in maintaining the integrity of elections,' the report stated.
'It recommended the development of a pledge for transparent and democratic use of AI in campaigning for politicians, by which they could publicly disclaim any use of AI in their advertising in order to maintain trust and engagement in the election process.'
Daily Mail Australia contacted Ruston for further comment.
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