Senator raises concerns over AI use in Budget documents

Akash Sama­roo

In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Ali­cia Pauline Lalite-Et­ti­enne has raised con­cerns that the use of ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence (AI) in prepar­ing doc­u­ments ac­com­pa­ny­ing the 2027 Na­tion­al Bud­get may be cre­at­ing bar­ri­ers for per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties, warn­ing that tech­no­log­i­cal ad­vance­ments must not come at the ex­pense of ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty and in­clu­sion.

Sen­a­tor Lalite-Et­ti­enne, who is vi­su­al­ly im­paired, told the Up­per House dur­ing yes­ter­day’s Bud­get de­bate that her screen-read­ing soft­ware re­peat­ed­ly iden­ti­fied the doc­u­ments she re­ceived as AI-gen­er­at­ed, but strug­gled to make the in­for­ma­tion ac­ces­si­ble to her.