AI 立法浪潮下：议员们既依赖又担忧被替代
导语：各位好！美国议员们被繁杂公务压得喘不过气，纷纷悄悄引入AI助手——起草法案、反驳游说、检索资料，忙得不可开交。但隐患在于，若某天Claude真的坐上议员席，选民手中的选票究竟投给了谁？这场人机博弈大戏，咱们且看且笑～
▍ 分段阅读
KENT ROE is a busy man. In addition to his full-time job as a farmland appraiser, he sits on the board of a utility company and on the council of his local Lutheran church. If that wasn’t enough already, for up to 40 days a year he serves as one of 70 lawmakers in South Dakota’s House of Representatives. It is gruelling work, without much help. South Dakota has the smallest legislative staff in the country; roughly 60 staffers help lawmakers with research and drafting legislation.
肯特·罗伊是一位身兼多职的忙碌人士。他的主业是农田估价师，同时兼任一家公用事业公司的董事，还担任当地路德教会的理事会成员。即便事务繁多，他每年仍会拨出最多40天时间，担任南达科他州众议院70名议员之一。这份立法工作艰巨辛苦，却缺乏足够的人力支援。南达科他州的立法辅助团队规模全美最小，仅约60名职员协助议员进行调研和法案起草。
These days Mr Roe relies increasingly on artificial intelligence (AI) to manage his workload. The representative says he uses AI chatbots for research, crafting arguments and mulling over talking points. “Honestly I love it,” he enthuses. “It’s a search engine on steroids.” He sometimes uses AI to help write bits of legislation, too. The lawmaker runs first drafts of bills through Grok, an AI tool developed by Elon Musk’s xAI, to refine his ideas or check which other states might have passed similar laws. He likes to prompt Grok to apply what he calls a “constitutional stress test” on proposed legislation. “It’s an accepted tool, same as a calculator is to do math, or a cell phone is to do phone calls,” he points out. “We’re not in the world of buggy whips anymore.”
如今，罗伊愈发依赖人工智能来应对繁重工作。该议员表示，他利用AI聊天机器人进行资料搜集、构建论点并斟酌发言要点。“老实说，我非常喜爱它，”他热情地说道，“这简直是被强化的搜索引擎。”他偶尔也会借助AI协助撰写部分法律条文。该立法者会将法案初稿输入Grok——由埃隆·马斯克旗下xAI公司打造的AI工具，用以打磨思路或核查其他州是否已通过类似法规。他常指示Grok对拟议法案执行所谓的“宪法压力测试”。“这是一种被普遍接纳的工具，如同计算器用于运算，手机用于通话，”他指出，“我们早已告别马车鞭的时代。”
Usage of AI is booming among state lawmakers and their staff. A survey by the National Conference of State Legislatures, a non-partisan grouping of sitting lawmakers, found that 44% of state legislative staff used AI in their work last year, up from just 20% in 2024. Governors and state agencies are also adopting the technology, in part to prune back excessive and badly written regulations. Doomers warn of a deluge of AI-generated “slop laws” gumming up legislatures, to say nothing of representatives merely regurgitating whatever Claude or ChatGPT tells them.
美国各州议员及其团队使用人工智能的热潮正迅猛蔓延。某无党派组织全美州议会联合会针对在职议员的一项调查显示，去年44%的州立法工作人员在工作中使用了AI，而2024年这一比例仅为20%。州长及各州政府机构也在引入该技术，部分原因在于削减冗长且表述不佳的法规。悲观论者警告称，AI批量生成的劣质法案将堵塞立法机构，更不必说议员们可能只会机械复述Claude或ChatGPT的输出了。
Most state legislators turn to AI out of need. “You have a lot of workload and no staff to help you out,” laments Nick Hoheisel, a Republican member of the Kansas House of Representatives. He says research that previously took him hours can now be done in a matter of minutes. AI can also help stretched legislators, who are expected to grasp a bewildering array of policy issues, push back against better-resourced lobbyists. Monique Priestley, a Democratic member of the Vermont House of Representatives, says she uses AI to fact-check lobbyists on the fly during committee hearings. “I’ve actually caught lobbyists in lies,” she says.
多数州议员采用AI实属无奈之举。堪萨斯州共和党众议员尼克·霍海塞尔感叹道：“工作量巨大，却无人手协助。”他表示，以往需耗费数小时的调研工作，如今几分钟即可完成。AI还能助力那些分身乏术的议员，应对纷繁复杂的政策议题，并抗衡资源更丰富的游说团体。佛蒙特州众议院民主党议员莫妮克·普里斯特利称，她在委员会听证会上会利用AI实时核实游说者的言论，“我确实曾当场揭穿游说者的谎言。”
For lawmakers using general-purpose models, however, AI making stuff up is a big problem. Mr Roe says he occasionally runs an AI prompt “ten times or a hundred times over” to calibrate for the right answer. Mr Hoheisel, for his part, says AI models hallucinate the most when it comes to case law. In any case, bills drafted with the help of AI are still overseen by lawyers, editors and researchers, notes John McCullough, the head of South Dakota’s legislative research council. But lawyers on legislative councils deal with crushing workloads as it is; a wave of AI-slop laws might easily overwhelm them.
然而，对于使用通用大模型的立法者而言，AI“胡编乱造”是个棘手难题。罗伊表示，为获取准确答案，他偶尔会将同一提示词重复运行十次甚至上百次。霍海塞尔则指出，AI模型在处理判例法时最易产生幻觉。无论如何，南达科他州立法研究委员会负责人约翰·麦卡洛强调，即便借助AI起草的法案，仍需律师、编辑和研究人员审核。但立法委员会的律师本就负荷过重，若AI生成的劣质法案浪潮来袭，极易使他们不堪重负。
At a deeper level, there is growing unease that lawmakers too reliant on AI may find it harder to think critically on important issues. Thought processes like writing, problem-solving and reasoning are inherent to the job. Offloading that to an AI raises stark questions about what it means to be a legislator. “I do worry that chatbots take away independent thought,” admits Mr Hoheisel in Kansas. “Your constituents aren’t electing Claude or ChatGPT. They’re electing you.”
更深层次上，外界日益担忧过度依赖AI的议员，可能在重大议题上丧失批判性思维能力。撰写文件、解决问题、逻辑推理本就是议员职责的内在要求。将这些工作完全外包给AI，引发了关于“立法者”意义的严峻拷问。堪萨斯州议员霍海塞尔坦言：“我确实担心聊天机器人会剥夺独立思考能力。选民选中的不是Claude或ChatGPT，而是你本人。”
▍ 词汇构建
▍ 语法与分析
Doomers warn of a deluge of AI-generated “slop laws” gumming up legislatures, to say nothing of representatives merely regurgitating whatever Claude or ChatGPT tells them
📖 译文：悲观论者警告称，AI批量生成的劣质法案将堵塞立法机构，更不必说议员们可能只会机械复述Claude或ChatGPT的输出了。
▍ 仿写练习
📝 考研英语写作模拟题
Directions: Write an essay based on the chart below. In your essay, you should 1. describe and interpret the chart, and 2. give your comments.
Write your answer in about 150 words on the ANSWER SHEET.
✅ 参考范文
The line chart clearly illustrates the soaring trend of AI technology adoption among China’s small and micro enterprises from 2022 to 2025. As shown in the data, the rate rose steadily from 12% in 2022 to 21% in 2023, before experiencing a sharp surge to 39% in 2024 and reaching 55% in 2025.
This remarkable growth reflects a profound shift in the business landscape. On the one hand, affordable, user-friendly AI tools have become widely accessible, enabling small businesses to boost efficiency—such as automating customer service and optimizing inventory—without heavy investment. On the other hand, fierce market competition has pushed enterprises to embrace digital transformation to stay competitive.
From my perspective, AI adoption is no longer a luxury but a necessity for small businesses. To fully unlock its potential, enterprises should focus on targeted applications rather than blind adoption. Meanwhile, policymakers should offer training and support to help small firms navigate the digital transition, ensuring they can thrive in the AI-driven economy.
▍ 翻译训练
✍️OpenClaw 是一款免费的开源工具，核心优势在于打破了传统AI“仅能对话交互”的局限，让AI模型能够直接执行操作：它可以帮你操控电脑、处理文件，自动完成各类重复繁琐的任务。随着开发者社区的壮大，这款工具正让AI变得更具实用性，也让普通用户能更轻松地借助AI提升工作效率。
结语：总之，AI再强大也不过是个“超级计算器”，能协助查资料、拟草案，但最终拍板决策的仍是那颗会思考的大脑。各位议员大人，用AI节省时间无可厚非，但千万别把大脑也省掉了——选民投的可不是给Claude的票哟！