AI Reveals Public Sentiment on Trumps Contentious Bill
President Donald Trump's proposed "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" is currently making its way through House of Representatives committees, with public attention captured via livestreams of the proceedings. In an innovative approach to gauging public sentiment, Newsweek utilized ChatGPT to analyze viewer comments during a YouTube livestream of the House Rules Committee's discussion. This session involved House Democrats questioning the Trump administration about the specifics of the comprehensive legislation.
The "One Big Beautiful Bill" Under Scrutiny
This substantial piece of legislation, detailed in a 1,116-page document, aims to significantly alter U.S. fiscal and social landscapes. It includes wide-ranging tax reforms, considerable spending cuts, and major policy overhauls. The bill recently cleared a hurdle when the House Budget Committee approved the reconciliation bill, which establishes the budget, in a narrow 17-16 vote. A full House of Representatives vote could occur later this week, but even if successful there, the bill faces the critical challenge of securing Senate approval to become law.
AI Enters the Political Arena: Analyzing Public Reaction
To understand the public's immediate reactions, Newsweek tasked ChatGPT with analyzing the live chat from the Associated Press's broadcast of the House Rules Committee hearing. This livestream attracted over 2,000 concurrent viewers. The specific prompt given to the AI was: "List the most common words and phrases and analyze the reaction, focusing on nontrivial, frequently used terms (ignoring very common English words like the, is, etc.)."
ChatGPT's Findings: A "Mildly Negative" Response
ChatGPT's analysis characterized the overall sentiment of the livestream chat as "mildly negative." The AI noted, "The frequency of most words is low due to the wide variety of unique phrases and proper nouns. However, vote and no appear repeatedly, indicating a strong theme of opposition or protest."
House Speaker Mike Johnson, left, and President Donald Trump speaking with the press following a House Republican meeting at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on May 20. Getty Images
One of the most prevalent messages observed was "vote no," frequently posted by viewers in direct response to comments from committee members. Further highlighting the sentiment, ChatGPT identified the most frequently used terms in the chat as no, shame, liar, MAGA, and tax.
Interestingly, while Ad Fontes' latest bias and reliability rankings place the Associated Press among the least politically biased news sources, the live chat accompanying their stream exhibited a discernible anti-Trump sentiment from viewers.
What Key Figures Are Saying
Several key figures have commented on the bill and related policy areas:
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, speaking on Fox News Sunday on May 18, expressed optimism and urgency: "We're on track, working around the clock to deliver this nation-shaping legislation for the American people as soon as possible. … This really is once-in-a-generation opportunity that we have here."
On the broader topic of AI policy, Margaret Hu, a professor of law at the William & Mary Law School, shared her perspective with Newsweek: "States are 'laboratories of democracy.' In the context of a field as new as AI law and policy, states and municipalities have been 'AI law laboratories of democracy.' If and when an omnibus AI law is passed by Congress, then Congress can say, 'We're now regulating the field at the federal level, and states should not interfere or pose an obstacle to federal regulation.' But that's not where we are right now. It's highly problematic constitutionally for Congress to say, 'We don't want to regulate AI, and we don't want states to regulate AI either.'"
Legislative Path Forward
Speaker Johnson has indicated a desire to see the bill pass the House by Memorial Day, May 26. Should it achieve this, the legislation will then advance to the Senate, where it is anticipated to encounter further challenges.
