Anti-LGBTQ+ Florida lawmaker caught Claude-handed using AI to draft legislation

This story originally appeared on The Advocate.

A Republican Florida lawmaker with a history of anti-LGBTQ+ stances got caught using Claude, an AI assistant built by Anthropic, to draft a summary of an amendment she proposed to existing legislation.

Washington Post reporter John Hudson first shared Rep. Anna Paulina Luna’s alleged use of AI on social media on Wednesday with the caption, “tfw you used Claude to write your NDAA amendment but forgot to hide your tracks.” The summary of the amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act clearly included a line that read, “11:25 AM???? Claude responded:” before launching into a summary of the amendment. That line has since been removed.

Luna’s proposed amendment would redirect Department of Defense resources to the U.S.’s Southwest border, per Forbes.

Luna defended the use of AI on X shortly after the snafu went viral.

“FYI NO Legislation is ever drafted with AI,” she wrote. “All bill text from the House comes from the House Legislative Council which is prohibited from using AI. The screenshot you’re referencing is an AI summary of the bill that’s also used for spellcheck, cmon man.”

Per Forbes, no other legislators have yet to comment on the use of AI to write a draft of a bill summary or whether such practice is now common in the U.S. Congress.

Luna later joked about the incident on social media. She shared a screenshot of the Forbes article about her team’s use of Claude with the caption: “While we’re at it let’s use AI to audit Congress because clearly there’s a lot of corruption here.”