Lee showed how he uses AI. Trump isn't telling

SEATTLE — President Lee Jae Myung has come under fire for publicly sharing how he used Google's Gemini to support his position in a political dispute. Across the Pacific, U.S. President Donald Trump has taken a different approach: He acknowledges using artificial intelligence (AI) but won't say exactly how.

Trump is hardly shy about AI-generated content. His social media accounts have featured a string of fabricated images and videos, including portrayals of himself as a pope and a king, as well as AI-generated content mocking political opponents.

But when reporters asked Trump about his personal use of AI aboard Air Force One last month, he offered little insight.

"I use AI. Yes, I do," Trump said.

Pressed on how he uses the technology, Trump replied, "Well, I don't want to tell you that."

The exchange illustrates a contrast with Lee, who publicly shared a Gemini-generated response to support his position on whether the heads of investigative agencies should attend Cabinet meetings.

Lee's disclosure sparked criticism from opposition politicians, who questioned his reliance on a chatbot to address legal and constitutional matters. The presidential office maintained that Lee had used Gemini to verify legal facts, not to make government decisions.

While Trump's public embrace of AI-generated political imagery is well documented, his remarks offered no indication of whether he personally consults chatbots on policy or legal questions.

Other American politicians, however, have been more forthcoming about their use of the technology.

Sen. Tommy Tuberville, a Republican from Alabama, told The Washington Post in August that he consults ChatGPT during long drives to learn about issues such as Medicare and Medicaid.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a Florida Republican, defended her staff's use of AI after a summary accompanying a defense bill amendment inadvertently included text generated by Anthropic's Claude.

The growing use of AI in American politics has raised questions about accuracy, transparency and accountability, particularly when elected officials rely on chatbot-generated information in their work.

In an August analysis published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, researchers Danaé Metaxa and Alex Engler highlighted the growing influence of AI chatbots on political discourse and the challenges of evaluating their responses.

"We see LLMs’ impact on political discourse as a critical new frontier of modern politics," they wrote, referring to large language models, the technology behind AI chatbots.

The researchers also noted that AI chatbots can produce different responses even when given identical questions.

The dispute surrounding Lee's use of Gemini also illustrated how different questions about the same political issue can yield conflicting AI-generated responses.

Rep. Na Kyung-won of the main opposition People Power Party said she had also consulted Gemini about the issue and received a response warning that justifying the attendance of investigative agency chiefs through presidential supervisory authority could threaten their political neutrality.

Na accused Lee of framing his question to obtain a favorable response.