Alaska Legislature Staff Debate AI Use for Official Records

Alaska legislative staff wrestled Tuesday with how to use artificial intelligence for official records while maintaining accuracy standards required for court proceedings.

The discussion centered on balancing efficiency gains from AI transcription tools against the risk of errors in official legislative documentation. Staff also raised concerns about a public figure scraping legislative data with AI and claiming the results surpass the legislature's own BASIS system.

The debate unfolds as Alaska moves cautiously on AI regulation. The legislature passed SB 177 in 2025, requiring state agencies to inventory AI systems used for consequential decisions and to disclose deepfakes in campaign communications. The House approved separate legislation in February 2026 banning AI-generated child sexual abuse material and deepfakes. But the state has also faced criticism after the Department of Education used AI to draft a school cellphone policy that included fabricated academic citations. Meanwhile, the state is proposing to embed autonomous artificial intelligence into the myAlaska app to complete multi-step government transactions, conduct eligibility checks, and retrieve documents across agencies without human intermediation.

Unauthorized Use Discovered

A legislative records manager said she discovered a new staffer had been using AI to write meeting minutes without authorization.

The manager said she is considering AI for editing rather than drafting. Staff currently use auto-generated Vimeo transcripts as a verification tool. The transcripts become available within 10 to 15 minutes after a video posts, but require significant cleanup.

Public Data Scraping Raises Concerns

An IT director said Will Muldoon is publicly scraping legislative records with AI and promoting the results on social media.

The director said Muldoon does not have special access beyond what is available to the public, but staff have shown him where to find data. Another official said Muldoon's AI-generated summaries contain errors and are difficult for the public to understand. The official said the legislature works in a specialized environment with technical language and acronyms that change over time, making accuracy critical for official records that may be used in court.

Four-Year Planning

The IT director said the legislature is working to incorporate AI into its four-year plan for Legislative Council but has not yet determined how.

Staff plan to bring the four-year plan to the group for feedback before presenting it to Legislative Council, though no deadline has been set.