OpenAI’s ChatGPT on Wednesday made its debut in Japanese parliamentary deliberations, with the prime minister fielding questions from an opposition lawmaker that were drawn up with the help of the chatbot.
Constitutional Democratic Party lawmaker Kazuma Nakatani told parliament that he asked ChatGPT: “What kind of questions would you ask the prime minister if you were a member of the lower house of parliament?”
He then used those responses to form questions for Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida during a discussion around a draft amendment related to COVID-19 pandemic policy.
Photo: Bloomberg
Among the questions drawn up by ChatGPT were: “On the bill about COVID policy revision, do you think you have listened to the opinion of local government and healthcare workers enough? And could you tell us how those people involved are responding to it?”
While the use of the chatbot might have been new for a parliamentary session, the discussions are highly regimented. Questions are submitted in advance, with the prime minister and most Japanese government ministers usually relying on reams of prepared text that they carry with them and from which they read in response.
Kishida responded to the questions with text prepared with the help of government officials.
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