ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - Recently-elected New Generation Movement (NGM) legislator Muzhda Mahmud Muhammed sparked outrage after claiming artificial intelligence could handle her parliamentary work and draft legislation, dismissing critics who questioned her right to a guaranteed seat.

Muhammed’s comments drew widespread criticism on social media after she responded to a citizen’s Facebook comment criticizing her guaranteed parliamentary seat, saying Muhammad “doesn’t know Arabic” and therefore cannot “present a comprehensive report or a comprehensive bill in the Iraqi parliament in Arabic.”

“Just tell [an AI language model] to draft a bill for you for anything, it will do it for you in 1 minute, and in whatever language in the world you want, it will do it for you,” Muhammad said in response to the criticism of a citizen on her post on Facebook. 

She later posted a video showing her using the AI tool Claude to draft a bil for the Kurdistan Region, but the video was removed after drawing widespread criticism and being flagged on social media.

She further noted that if the AI-generated project did not work out, she would reach out to other party members for assistance by saying, “We are a force, we have dozens of law experts, and whatever is needed, we have it ready."

The party announced Muhammed as an elected candidate to the Iraqi parliament on the New Generation Movement list earlier on Sunday.

She previously served in the Kurdistan Region Parliament as a member of the Reconstruction and Investment Committee and the Integrity Committee.

On August 12, Shaswar Abdulwahid, the leader of the NGM, was arrested by Sulaimani Police and is currently serving a five-month prison sentence under Article 431 of the Iraqi Penal Code, which states, “Whoever threatens another with committing a felony against himself or his property, or against the person or property of another, or with attributing or disclosing dishonorable matters in cases other than those specified in Article 430, shall be punished by detention.”

Abdulwahid's detention is related to a 2019 lawsuit by a former lawmaker of his party, who accused him of threatening to publish explicit images of her.

On Wednesday, Iraq’s Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) announced the results of the parliamentary elections for all 19 provinces in the country, with results for Sulaimani showing the NGM in third at 69,752 votes.

Iraq concluded its sixth parliamentary elections on Tuesday evening at 6:00 pm, in which nearly 7,750 candidates competed for the Iraqi legislature’s 329 seats.