'Tough Thing For Us To Square': Nick LaLota Grills CBO Director On Asking For 8% Funding Increase

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During a House Appropriations Committee hearing prior to the congressional recess, Rep. Nick LaLota (R-NY) grilled CBO Director.

Transcript

00:00I recognize Mr. Lolota for his five minutes.

00:02Good morning, Dr. Swigel. How are you doing? You're going to stay in the hot seat for a few

00:05moments. No, good. Hope you don't mind. Of course. Appreciate you taking the time to come to my office

00:09yesterday, and I want to continue some of the conversation we had yesterday now here. You're

00:14the director of the Congressional Budget Office, right? Yes, sir. And when you ask ChatGBT what the

00:20mission or focus of the Congressional Budget Office is, the AI tool states that the Congressional

00:25Budget Office is a nonpartisan agency that provides Congress with analyses and projections

00:29for budget and economic decisions. Its main functions are to help Congress understand

00:34the fiscal impact of their policies and to provide objective, timely data to inform economic

00:39and budgetary decisions. Is that a fair summary of your department, sir? No, that's very good. Great.

00:45Is it fair to say that a large part of your staff's work is to research, gather information,

00:51process that information, evaluate it, and ultimately disseminate it to policymakers here

00:56in the Congress? No, that's exactly right. That's our mission, to gather

00:59another, analyze, and then disseminate. And you have a staff of about 270 people to do

01:04that? 270, yeah. And when your staff is doing their jobs to research and provide analysis

01:09to Congress, do you use artificial intelligence? We do now in some limited ways. Some things

01:17on the programming side, some things on the sort of technical side. The output side, no.

01:23And in some sense, our reports, our analysis is our judgment. So the output side, no. The input side,

01:30we'll use it in some ways like you have to summarize outside information, but in limited ways.

01:35Is it safe to say that nowadays you're using the AI tool more than you did a year ago, two years ago,

01:41five years ago? Oh, absolutely.

01:42And what benefits, in terms of efficiency specifically, do AI tools provide the CBO?

01:47For some things, it's really an incredible benefit. On the programming side, converting from old code to

01:54new code, it's amazing. For summarizing information, it's very useful. And you showed a perfect example.

02:01Sometimes it's not quite as good for complicated issues. And so we're still a bit wary.

02:09But when you're using it, you're seeking to use it to make work more efficient?

02:12I'll give you one example. I had a recent meeting with someone, and I wanted to know, well,

02:19what's this person's work about? And I didn't do it. One of my staff put essentially, you know,

02:25his web page into ChatGPT, and it gave me a page of a summary of what this person did.

02:32And it was pretty spot on. So that's an example of the efficiency.

02:36So here's my trouble. You're asking for an 8% increase. Pretty sizable. Nowadays, a large part of

02:43the conversation we're having here, especially on this side of the aisle, is finding efficiencies,

02:47reducing costs, cutting spendings, providing new programs and procedures to help make things more

02:53efficient. At a time where a department that's inherently research and process-based has a new

03:01tool in AI to avail itself of. At the same time that you're able to gain those efficiencies,

03:06you're also asking for 8%, not 2% or 3%, but 8% in order to build your staff up. And that's a tough

03:15thing for us to square up here. So I guess my question then, Doctor, is why does the CBO need more

03:21people at a time where there's such a tool out there to make your job more efficient, sir?

03:26No, that's right. It's obviously a completely fair question. And thank you for raising it yesterday

03:32and today. What I would say is these new AI tools will help us. They're a support for us. They do add

03:41efficiencies. The people we add are experts, and they're the ones doing the analysis. And so of an

03:48issue that's in front of us, we need the experts who understand what's happened in the past, what the

03:54situation is now, how what the executive branch is doing affects the legislation, and then can do

03:59that analysis. So in some sense, it's our analysis, our people who are the experts use these tools,

04:06but we need the people. I can give you an example, but I feel like I've gone on a bit long.

04:10I appreciate that. You know, you're in the business of developing reports and recommendations.

04:15Looking internally to your 270-person staff, have you done an analysis within yourself to figure out

04:21to what is the cost benefit of integrating AI more into your operation? Because I'm still not able

04:27to, because of our conversation yesterday and today, and you're being good and honest and deliberate,

04:32and I appreciate that. But I'm still not able to square why we need more people when you have such a tool

04:37out there to create efficiency. So I guess my question is, can you show us a report that looking

04:42internally to your 270-person department that harnesses AI and to tell us that given AI, you might need less

04:50people. You might be able to cut costs or provide more efficiencies. Can you provide us a report in

04:54due time, doctor, on that? Absolutely. I can do that, and that's a useful suggestion where it will let us

05:00do, you know, to save, and then if I have more resources where AI won't, you know, I need people,

05:06I need resources on top of the AI. I'll do that. Thanks, doctor. I yield, chairman.

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