Italian senator reads AI-generated speech in parliament

1/6/2023 18:42

        An Italian senator has surprised his colleagues by reading out in parliament a speech drafted by a chatbot, saying afterwards that he pulled the stunt to stir "a serious debate" on risks and opportunities posed by artificial intelligence.
        
        Centrist senator Marco Lombardo's speech, on the subject of various bilateral deals with Switzerland, was produced by Microsoft Corp-backed OpenAI's GPT-4 chatbot.
        
        He said his staff "took a couple of hours" to feed the necessary information into the software, which then produced the speech "instantaneously".
        
        The leader of Lombardo's Azione party, Carlo Calenda, said on Twitter that what the senator said in the chamber was "impeccable", but added: "It is not yet clear to me whether we are looking at progress or at a step back."
        
        Lombardo said he had been impressed by recent developments in AI, but called for a better understanding of the technology in order to strike the correct balance between regulation and innovation.