- An Italian senator was surprised to read a speech generated by an artificial intelligence chatbot in the Roman Parliament.
- The politician wanted to create debates about the role of AI in the world and questioned the ability to distinguish between texts generated by people and algorithms.
- The speech was made by OpenAI’s ChatGPT4 and praised for its quality, though it was questioned whether AI advances are progress or regression.
An Italian senator surprised everyone this Thursday, June 1, by reading a speech in the Roman Parliament that had been written entirely by a generative artificial intelligence chatbot like ChatGPT.
The politician later said that it did so to spark “serious discussions” regarding the risk and opportunity that AI poses to the world.
“How many of us are currently capable of distinguishing between texts produced by the intelligence of people and those generated by artificial intelligence algorithms?” he said aloud to the other senators. Marco Lombardo.
The speech, linked to an issue of agreements with neighboring Switzerland, was generated, Lombardo said, by ChatGPT4, from the OpenAI company, backed by Microsoft Corp.
As explained by the Italian senator, his advisers took “a couple of hours” to give the chat the information it needed and then the program generated the entire speech “instantaneously.”
One of the senators, after listening to the speech, said that it was “flawless” and that he was not sure if the AI advances were “advances or a step backwards.”
The interview of oggi su @LaStampa https://t.co/BUMCPXdJjN
– Marco Lombardo (@mlombardo81) May 31, 2023
Can the artificial intelligence improve our daily life, but how can we guarantee that we don’t believe new dissuading and divisions in society?
The speech of the Senator @mlombardo81 è stato scritto dall’IA e nessuno di noi sarebbe stato in grade of distinguishing it from… pic.twitter.com/36phkpWyeb
—Azione (@Azione_it) May 31, 2023
Artificial intelligence and political discourse
The Italian politician’s idea about artificial intelligence is not new. A couple of months ago, in Argentina, former President Mauricio Macri did something similar.
Indeed, the opponent of the current government of Alberto Fernández opened his speech at a foundation dinner with a text generated by artificial intelligence.
When he arrived at the podium, Macri said reading on the screen of his smartphone: “Good evening to all of you, it is an honor for me to be at the closing of the annual lunch of the Libertad Foundation. This is an organization that for years has worked for the defense of Freedom and the democratic values of our country, today I want to refer to the importance of these values in the world”.
And then he clarified: “I asked ChatGPT for this five minutes ago at my table, I’m not going to read the whole speech, but it really is very good”.
Now read:
Woman uses ChatGPT to get great interviews; “works for all jobs”
LuzIA, the WhatsApp ChatGPT to transcribe audio
Limits to Artificial Intelligence: Europe is one step away from regulating ChatGPT