Italian senator reads AI-generated speech in parliament 'to stir debate'

FILE PHOTO: A general view of the upper house of parliament in Rome, Italy, October 13, 2022. REUTERS/Yara Nardi

ROME (Reuters) - 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.

"How many of us today are able to distinguish between a text produced by human intelligence and a stream of thoughts ... produced by an artificial intelligence algorithm?" centrist senator Marco Lombardo asked colleagues.