Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister Furious His Regulators Banned ChatGPT

"There has clearly been too much zeal."

Permabanned

After Italy banned OpenAI's ChatGPT, a surprising detractor came out of the woodwork — the country's own deputy prime minister.

As Reuters reports, Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini has sounded off on the decision by the country's privacy regulator, known as Garante, arguing that the ban stifles innovation and could leave the country behind.

The privacy regulator shut down ChatGPT last month, citing concerns over how OpenAI collects user data and the fact that it gives users below the age of 13 unrestricted access to the tool.

It has only been a few days since OpenAI complied with the regulator's order to go offline in Italy pending an investigation, but the far-right politician who has served twice as the country's deputy prime minister, has had enough.

"This is a work tool that many young people, many companies, many start-ups were using," Salvini said Tuesday during an appearance at the Foreign Press Association in Rome, "and I hope that they can use it again as soon as possible, because otherwise Italy will have a gap compared to all other European countries."

Big Mad

While some other European countries are looking into their own ChatGPT bans — including Germany, Ireland, and France, according to Reuters — Salvini said that the outright ban placed by Garante is "disproportionate."

"If only one [EU] country out of 27 has made this choice, either the other 26 are distracted, tolerant and uninterested, or there has clearly been too much zeal," he said.

While he may have a point, this kind of anti-regulatory rhetoric about artificial intelligence isn't unique to Salvini or the far-right League party he leads in Italy.

In the United States, for instance, conservatives have gone nuclear against restricting AI chatbots from spewing hate speech and disinformation — so much so that Elon Musk is purportedly looking to build his own anti-"woke" AI.

It's a brave new world thanks to AI chatbots — and we're just seeing the beginning of the coming AI culture wars.

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