It is plain for everyone to see that artificial intelligence has been causing discussion in recent months, since the introduction of ChatGPT and similar. As well as evidenced by a large series of our articles.
But the controversy, entirely in Italian style, which broke out in the last few hours, is truly sui generis.
Let’s start with the news, and then see what some say doesn’t add up. Giuliano Amato will chair a committee on AI (and publishing). And this left more than a few doubts. Linked both to the age of the former Prime Minister and to the methods of appointment.
Giuliano Amato president of a committee on AI
The Meloni government has established a committee on AI headed by Giuliano Amato.
More precisely, it is about Committee to study the impact of artificial intelligence in publishing, which began its work on Tuesday 24 October.
The importance of the Committee is explained by Alberto Barachini, Undersecretary of State at the Presidency of the Council of Ministers with responsibility for Information and Publishing. Barachini said: “It is crucial to thoroughly analyze the use, development and impact of artificial intelligence in the publishing and information sector.
Hence the decision to establish a Committee at the Department for Information and Publishing made up of experts and university professors who will study the impact of this technology on the world of journalism and news.”
The appointment of Giuliano Amato. The first controversy
The first of the two controversies surrounding the appointment of Giuliano Amato as head of the AI Committee is of a political nature.
Leaving aside Amato’s past in centre-left governments, Giorgia Meloni’s irritation seems to come from the fact that the appointment took place without the prime minister herself having been notified.
Entirely realistic hypothesis, reading Barachini’s words on the day the Committee’s work began: “Today the editorial commission on Artificial Intelligence, thanks to the clarification with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni with whom I personally apologized for the communication mix-up , has begun its work, aimed at indicating the repercussions of AI in the field of information and publishing to Prime Minister Meloni and to the Committee established by Undersecretary Butti, which has general competence on the topic.”
The second controversy
The second controversy concerns the fact that an eighty-five year old gentleman has been placed at the head of a Committee that has to deal with a technology… young by definition.
In fact, artificial intelligence, especially generative intelligence, has forcefully entered our lives only since November 2022, when (to be precise on day 30) ChatGPT was launched on the market.
The immediate and somewhat crude mental association is: what does an over-eighty year old know about AI? And comparisons with the United Kingdom are being made in many quarters, where the government has appointed thirty-eight-year-old Ian Hogarth, a digital entrepreneur with a solid background in machine learning, for a similar position.
The doubts about Amato (and a modest point of view)
The problem therefore seems twofold. Linked both to Giuliano Amato’s age and to a professional and political career certainly not steeped in studies on artificial intelligence.
This may suggest the low regard in which AI is held in our country (in addition to the usual refrain about seats occupied by people who are not too young). But we allow ourselves an objection. Often, in Italy, prestigious roles are entrusted to individuals not so much for their specific preparation in the subject, but for their CV. How else would we explain (even in the recent past) ministers who in their political career have been at the head of two or more very different ministries?
In the case of Giuliano Amato at the head of the AI Committee, then, just read the names of the other members. Which includes several university professors and scholars of subjects closely related to artificial intelligence and new technologies.
Another committee on AI
The committee on AI in the publishing sector was born almost simultaneously with the government’s establishment of a task force of 13 experts on artificial intelligence.
This is a committee established by Alessio Butti, undersecretary of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers with responsibility for innovation.
The team, by January 31st, will have to bring to the attention of Butti himself the strategies and directions adopted by our country to make the most of artificial intelligence.