- ImpactWe help parliaments to become greener and to implement the Paris agreement.We support democracy by strengthening parliamentsWe work to increase women’s representation in parliament and empower women MPs.We defend the human rights of parliamentarians and help them uphold the rights of all.We help parliaments fight terrorism, cyber warfare and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.We encourage youth participation in parliaments and empower young MPs.We support parliaments in implementing the SDGs with a particular focus on health and climate change.
- Parliaments
Nearly every country in the world has some form of parliament. Parliamentary systems fall into two categories: bicameral and unicameral. Out of 190 national parliaments in the world, 78 are bicameral (156 chambers) and 112 are unicameral, making a total of 268 chambers of parliament with some 44,000 members of parliament. IPU membership is made up of 180 national parliamentsFind a national parliament
The Swiss National Council © The Swiss Parliament
We help strengthen parliaments to make them more representative and effective. - Knowledge
Discover the IPU's resources
Our library of essential resources for parliamentsGlobal data for and about national parliamentsLatest data and reports about women in parliamentResolutions, declarations and outcomes adopted by IPU MembersRecent innovations in the way parliaments workThe latest climate change legislation from the London School of Economics' database
Argentina: First steps towards an AI driven Chamber of Deputies
The CIP team spoke to Germán Tarasewiez, Director of Innovation, Planning and New Technologies at the Argentinian Chamber of Deputies. We discussed how the Chamber’s first steps with AI have supported parliamentary work. And the initial experience has now developed into more complex projects.
CIP: How did the Chamber of Deputies get started with AI?
GT: In December 2019, the Chamber began a truly digital transformation. The purpose was to introduce tools to promote efficiency and transparency in its work. We identified a series of processes that had the potential to be improved through AI. We then carried out training and awareness sessions, and developed AI diagnostic tools with international partners. Finally, we prepared a guide on AI for parliamentary work.
CIP: What specific AI projects have been implemented?
GT: As part of the transformation process, one achievement was to digitize the shorthand versions of the transcripts of plenary sessions from 2005 to 2020. We worked with a team from the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research (CONICET) to create an editable database. Alongside this, an intelligent data algorithm was developed for indexing the legislative information in these newly formatted documents. The result is a system that allows for intelligent searching to retrieve relevant reports from parliamentary sessions. This makes it possible to monitor public policies over time, and to determine topic trends at different points in our legislative history, as well as the extent to which legislative practice and social demands have come together to highlight changes across parliament and society.
The shorthand versions of the parliamentary record were analysed using a Latent Dirichlet Allocation algorithm, which groups words and terms into common topics. Forty topics were identified. Two web services were then created, so that anyone can consult the composition of the topics (which words make up each topic and to what extent, so revealing which has the greatest influence), and their evolution over time.
CIP: What can you say about the ownership and oversight of AI?
GT: Our experience with AI at the Chamber of Deputies is based on the use of public information. The shorthand records and other information used do not contain private data. The AI implementation was led by the Innovation Directorate, together with all relevant areas of Congress. Without the help of multidisciplinary teams from various areas, it would have been impossible to do such a large project. Managing bias is a major challenge in AI projects. We have implemented measures to address these biases and ensure good ethics in our use of AI, involving experts from each relevant area. Collaboration with external institutions has been essential, and we have established solid policies to evaluate the effectiveness of the project.
CIP: What does the future look like?
GT: We are moving into the future with several promising projects. One of our main focuses is to develop a virtual tool for preparing bills. It aims to provide solid support for drafting bills that meet legislative technical standards, are high quality, and are well structured. We are also committed to incorporating a gender perspective into the way bills are formulated.
Integrating AI into this tool will allow for an intelligent review. We are also working to make it able to predict the committees that a bill is likely to be referred to. This will streamline the legislative process, and improve decision-making efficiency.
In addition, we are embarking on a large-scale project that involves the digitization of all parliamentary archives. This is a critical step, as it will be a solid foundation for a variety of AI projects. As is well known, databases are essential for training machine learning and AI models. We hope this digitization process will allow us to advance multiple additional projects in this area, and so provide significant efficiency and transparency benefits to parliamentary work.