A contender to replace Jagmeet Singh as leader of the New Democrats was forced to make an apology for using artificial intelligence in responses to questions from supporters.

Rob Ashton hosted a virtual campaign event on Reddit's section for discussion surrounding the federal NDP. As he raised concerns over the harmful impact AI might have on jobs, some sharp-eyed followers of the event detected the candidate was using the technology to reply to supporters' queries.

Ashton, who currently serves as president of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, confessed “some of those answers were written with the help of AI tools” in an apology that passed the blame on to his staff.

On Wednesday's Buffalo Roundtable livestream, Sheila Gunn Reid and Lise Merle were skeptical about the NDP leadership hopeful's excuse.

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“Well, RIP to his political career,” said Lise after the two highlighted how Ashton billed himself as a straight-shooting political outsider. “This is pretty embarrassing,” she said, ridiculing his message of how he was “here to work hard” for voters as he used ChatGPT to respond.

“I love that he used ChatGPT to denounce AI on Reddit and when he was called out for it because it was just so obvious, he threw his staff under the bus,” Sheila added, raising questions about whether Ashton's supporters were actually participating in an “ask me anything” or if it was an “ask my staff” or “ask my AI” anything event.

“Oopsie daisy, vote for me,” replied Lise. “I just love it so much,” said Sheila of watching the political trainwreck.

New Democrats will select their party's new leader on March 29.