Analysis flags possible AI use in Dutch defense speeches

Summary

An analysis by Nieuwsuur of 77 speeches by Dutch Cabinet officials found that Defense Minister Dilan Yeşilgöz and State Secretary Derk Boswijk were flagged more often than others for possible AI use. The findings relied in part on sentence patterns that University of Amsterdam political communication scholar Tom Dobber described as awkward, empty, and characteristic of AI-generated text. Pangram, the software used to assess texts, assigns a suspicion score; Dobber called it promising and said early results suggested high accuracy. Pangram reportedly assessed a speech Boswijk gave at the Keti Koti commemoration as 95 percent AI-generated. Boswijk said he did not know why it received that score and described the speech as personal, with a structure he had devised himself. The Defense Ministry said speechwriters use AI as a tool, such as to find synonyms, but not to generate entire speeches. Yeşilgöz separately rejected the claim that AI wrote her speeches, saying they may undergo spelling and sentence-structure checks. The report follows separate coverage of AI-written social media posts by Prime Minister Rob Jetten, who has said he sees no problem with using AI to make work easier, provided people review the output.