ChatGPT quizzes Japanese prime minister, Fumio Kishida in parliament

Wednesday saw the debut of a new era of technology in Japan, as OpenAI’s ChatGPT was tested for its outstanding digital ability.

During the Japanese parliamentary deliberations, many bore witness to the ability of an Artificial Intelligence (AI) software, Chatbox. Abilities that helped the opposition lawmaker construct questions to suit the parliamentary session.

In that session, Kazuma Nakatami, of the democratic party, relayed his experience with the software; he said he asked ChatGPT: “What kind of questions would you ask the prime minister if you were a member of the parliament?”

The inquiry bore results. Results he used to form questions for Fumio Kishida, the prime minister, during a discussion around a draft amendment related to Covid-19 pandemic policy.

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But that was not the only question birthed from the digital mouthpiece; another was: “On the bill about Covid policy revision, do you think you have listened to the opinion of local government and health-care workers enough? And could you tell us how those people involved are responding to it?”

Even though this stands as a game changer for the world of tech, there are voices who stand cautious upon its achievement. AI experts and industry leaders, including: Elon Musk, Stuart Russel, computer science professor of the university of California Berkeley and Steve Woznaik, Apple Inc. co-founder, this week called on developers to hit the pause button on training powerful AI models.

More than 1,100 people in the industry signed a petition calling for a six-month break from training systems more powerful than the latest iteration behind ChatGPT, so as to allow development of shared safety protocols.

In the face of the ChatGPT questions, Kishida responded not with digital prowess, but with the help of distinguished government officials.

But what staggering accomplishment the world has come to, that a software could so effortlessly deliver fully constructed questions on the go for a parliamentary session that is customarily considered to be a highly orchestrated affair; an affair heavily relying on beforehand preparations as Japanese government ministers usually depend on reams of prepared text they carry with them to guide their response in the session.