EU Parliament Overwhelmed by AI-Generated Content: Fake Legal Citations Cause Administrative Backlog, Complaints Rise 50%
Generative AI has flooded the EU Parliament with amendments containing fake legal citations, forcing legal services to spend days verifying them, while complaints to the European Ombudsman have risen by 50%.
Despite viewing itself as a global pioneer in artificial intelligence regulation, the European Union's own institutions in Brussels and Strasbourg are grappling with the consequences of uncontrolled generative AI use. According to a report by German tech media heise online citing independent news platform Rapporteur, the EU Parliament and Commission are being overwhelmed by automatically generated content, causing organizational problems that are difficult to manage even with technical assistance.
Alessandro Chiocchetti, Secretary-General of the European Parliament, recently warned of a rapid increase in amendments, parliamentary questions, petitions, and requests for access to files driven by generative AI. Parliament President Roberta Metsola also expressed concern, urging members not to delegate democratic responsibility to algorithms and emphasizing that AI-drafted amendments should not replace genuine dialogue with colleagues or direct contact with voters. On Thursday, the Parliament adopted a resolution on AI in administration and democracy, with new administrative guidelines expected soon.
The impact is visible in daily operations. Interpreters translating documents into 24 official languages using traditional machine translation without AI have encountered "hallucinations" in texts submitted by representatives, including references to non-existent laws. The Parliament's legal service reportedly spends days verifying these AI-generated claims. Observers note that some parliamentarians use AI to simulate activity with minimal effort to improve their standing in internal rankings.
In response, Irish Member of the European Parliament Barry Andrews introduced an internal directive prohibiting his own use of AI in votes, plenary speeches, press releases, and commission questions. Transparently, the directive itself notes it was created with AI assistance. Conversely, Swedish MEP Jörgen Warborn argues that AI significantly boosts productivity, noting that the Industrial Accelerator Act received over 5,000 amendments; while AI should not be used solely to overload the system, he welcomes greater efficiency.