One critic said Mr. Amato «probably doesn't know how to send a screenshot to his cell phone.» Photo: Simona Granati — Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images
The decision to appoint an 85-year-old as Italy's artificial intelligence czar has raised eyebrows and heightened political tensions within the ruling coalition.
Giuliano Amato, a former prime minister and head of the Constitutional Court with no apparent experience in information technology, will head a new commission to assess the risks posed by the technology.
Italy faces a brave new world of artificial intelligence, critics suggested that Amato may have difficulty keeping up with Google's artificial intelligence, let alone understanding the rapidly changing problems of algorithms, machine learning and ChatGPT.
Mr Amato's choice compared unfavorably with his counterpart in Britain, Ian Hogarth, 41, a Cambridge-educated computer science expert and technology entrepreneur who has founded several start-ups and made a fortune investing in artificial intelligence companies.
In June, Hogarth, a leading expert in artificial intelligence, was appointed to head a £100 million task force examining the risks posed by artificial intelligence, while Prime Minister Rishi Sunak pledged to make the UK a world leader in regulating artificial intelligence.
An opposition MP called Amato a “dinosaur” who should not have been chosen for this position.
“Under this government, we are becoming a country that fails to take our youth into account, «a dinosaurocracy stuck in an outdated and conservative vision,» said Emma Pavanelli, MP for the Five Star Movement.
The appointment was «absurd», especially compared to the UK's decision to appoint a bona fide expert such as Mr Hogarth, she said.
“London chooses Ian, 38, while Rome chooses Amato, 85,” read the headline of La Stampa newspaper, which incorrectly stated Mr. Hogarth's age.
“Does he know? what is the algorithm, or will it be able to find it on Google? the newspaper asked Mr. Amato. “Why not appoint a young person, there are many capable ones. This is easy to answer — after all, in Italy we suffer from Albus Dumbledore syndrome, just like the great headmaster of Hogwarts.
“When things go wrong or we simply don’t understand them, we prefer to resort to the help of an old sage.”
The reaction on social media was equally harsh.
“Eighty-five-year-old Amato probably doesn’t know how to send a screenshot to his mobile,” said one Italian on X, formerly known as Twitter.
< p>Another wrote: “With all the people we have who are under 30 or 40 years old, are we assigning him to study the impact of AI?”
Meloni is “irritated” by this decision
Amato was born in 1938 and twice served as Prime Minister of Italy: first from 1992 to 1993, and then from 2000 to 2001.
His appointment reportedly «irritated» Giorgia Meloni, the prime minister, who was not informed of the decision.
Meloni's government blocked ChatGPT in March over concerns about how the site processes and stores user data.
But the decision was later reversed in accordance with the country's data protection requirements. authorities said ChatGPT has been restored with «increased transparency and rights» for users.
Mr Amato was nominated as a junior minister belonging to Forza Italia, the center-right party of the late Silvio Berlusconi, which is one of three parties that make up the governing coalition.
The relationship between Forza Italia and Ms Meloni's party, » Brothers of Italy is already under strain from a scandal last week when audio and video footage of the Prime Minister's partner Andrea Giambruno making sexual remarks, including suggesting a threesome, to women was leaked online. -journalists on the TV channel where he works as a presenter.
The channel is managed by Mediaset, founded by Mr. Berlusconi and now managed by his heirs. There were suggestions, which have not been confirmed, that the clips were published as a result of an attempt by Berlusconi's party to weaken the prime minister's position in the three-party coalition.
A few hours after the recordings were published. it became known that Ms. Meloni had separated from Mr. Giambruno, the father of her seven-year-old daughter.
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