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Google and Microsoft, “Garante-ChatGPT? Rules to be respected”

The two giants speak at the Rome Science Festival

Google Italia and Microsoft Italia speak out on the affair that has seen the Italian Data Protection Authority lead OpenAi to block access to the famous chatbot ChatGpt in our country. The two companies spoke on a panel at the MoltoFuturo event of the Rome Science Festival.

“We have reached a turning point,” explained Mattia De Rosa, Solution Specialists Data & AI Director Microsoft. “There is a fundamental change in the interaction between humans and machines, with the latter being able to express themselves naturally. This scenario needs rules. The Garante has done very well to protect our privacy. For its part, Open Ai has shown itself ready to collaborate with the regulator to understand the critical points of the service and improve them. And this is the best way to create an ecosystem that is valid and functional to the demands of the regulators and the needs of companies that develop technology, without holding it back”.

Along the same lines is Diego Ciulli, Head of Government Affairs and Public Policy at Google Italy. “We are in the presence of a revolution that would be very dangerous not to regulate. Like Google, we are in favor of imposing very precise rules, at a national and global level. There was a time when it was necessary to regulate nuclear power, and now it is the same for artificial intelligence. Besides, there is no need to create new laws either.

On the contrary, a legislative ‘cascade’ must be avoided if there are already guidelines that we can follow and adapt for the occasion. I am thinking of copyright laws. Copyrighted content that is used to feed artificial intelligence databases is an area to work on. But we have to distinguish when books, photos, videos, are used to ‘teach’ machines and when they are foundational elements of new AI-generated content. If we put principles before rules, we will never go wrong”.

chatgpt italy
chatgpt italy

The (un)sustainable side of the innovation

Artificial intelligence and its development pose many questions, not only from a technical but also from an ethical point of view. This was discussed during the same MoltoFuturo event. “Giving precise rules to the development of technology is fundamental,” emphasized Paola Inverardi, Rector of the Gran Sasso Science Institute (Gssi). “This is because, in itself,” she adds, “artificial intelligence automates instructions that, in the first instance, come from man. If we live in a digital world in which computer systems play an essential role, we must show ourselves ready to include them more in our activities.

Europe has been very attentive to this issue, so much so that it has identified rules. One of them? Those who develop AI projects must align themselves with the principles and values of a democratic state and allow humans to have control over such initiatives at all times”. What can research organizations do to create more balance in the realization of technologically advanced models? “Cooperation is decisive in this field. That is why computer scientists, jurists, sociologists, psychologists collaborate in our institute.

In this way we can balance human behavior, which is naturally exposed to personal tendencies and inclinations, with the stability sought by machines”. According to Inverardi, greater attention in the advancement of algorithms must also go to the environmental sustainability of the systems: “All this technology requires a very important computational effort. Data centers have to be maintained, managed and powered. This is extremely energy-intensive and needs to be worked on”.

Antonino Caffo has been involved in journalism, particularly technology, for fifteen years. He is interested in topics related to the world of IT security but also consumer electronics. Antonino writes for the most important Italian generalist and trade publications. You can see him, sometimes, on television explaining how technology works, which is not as trivial for everyone as it seems.