U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand is pictured Thursday at Chautauqua Institution. P-J photo by Eric Tichy

CHAUTAUQUA — U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand talked ethics, the military and artificial intelligence during a special appearance Thursday at Chautauqua Institution.

Gillibrand followed journalist Bob Woodward on the Amphitheater stage as part of the week’s theme, “Freedom of Expression, Imagination, and the Resilience of Democracy.” Earlier in the day, the senator said she received a tour of the Cummins Engine plant.

On transparency, Michael Hill, Chautauqua Institution president, asked Gillibrand about stock trading among members of Congress. The issue has become more prevalent after several members of the U.S. Senate were accused of selling stocks at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, before a market crash in February 2020.

Last month, Gillibrand introduced a bill with Republican Sen. Josh Hawley that would create stringent stock trading bans and disclosure requirements for Congress, senior executive branch officials, and their spouses and dependents.

“We as Americans do not expect that our elected leaders will go to Washington and get rich quick,” Gillibrand said. “We do not expect that they’re going to benefit from their public service. … We expect that they’re there to serve us and to do the people’s work. Well, that’s not the case.”

Specifically, she said her bill bans stock trading, stock ownership and blind trusts; imposes heavy penalties for executive branch stock trading; requires reporting of federal benefits; creates additional transparency in financial disclosure reports; and increases transaction report penalties under the original STOCK Act.

Hill questioned Gillibrand about the state of the country’s military and “how you think that fits in with our democracy?”

He added, “What are the challenges for us as we think about our own relationship between military and democratic system?”

As a congresswoman, Gillibrand said she served on the Armed Services Committee. While many of her male House colleagues discussed military readiness in terms of ships and aircraft numbers, she and former U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords asked about personnel.

“Are we mentally ready?” she recalled of the questions being asked at the time. “Why is the suicide rate the highest it’s ever been? Why is the domestic violence rate the highest it’s ever been and why is the divorce rate as high as it’s ever been?”

She found that service members were being sent back to war too soon and suffering from PTSD as a result. When she arrived in the U.S. Senate, she focused on well-being in the military and learned of growing cases of sexual assault cases against men and women.

Making matters worse, Gillibrand said convictions for sexual assault among service members are rare.

“So, I got to work on that issue and I built a bipartisan coalition over time,” she said, later referencing a bill to “change how we address sexual assault the military and military justice for all serious crimes.”

She mentioned Vanessa Guillen, a U.S. Army soldier who was murdered in 2020 at Fort Hood in Texas.

“That’s why we did the reforms,” the senator said. “We made sure that sexual assault, sexual harassment, murder — all violent crimes — are included.

Regarding artificial intelligence, Gillibrand it has “created enormous amounts of opportunity but also enormous amounts of risk, and we have had no regulation about how to oversee and account for it.”

She noted how AI can be used to create fake videos of people — also known as deep fakes — that can be used to sway public opinion during an election.

“It’s not hard at all,” Gillibrand said, “to have me having conversations with some other person — saying something that I never said is really not hard at all.”