“It’s quite fascinating”: Bruno Le Maire tried ChatGPT to write a speech “in five minutes”

“Give me a speech on Xi Jinping’s China in 2023.” This is what Bruno Le Maire asked ChatGPT. The Minister of Economy has tested the OpenAI company’s artificial intelligence text generator, which he finds “quite fascinating”.

During his political career, the minister wrote speeches for Dominique de Villepin or Jacques Chirac. Therefore, he subjected the software to the exercise that he himself carried out for years.

“Ethical difficulties”

This time saving is a good example of the latest studies pointing to the risk of replacing workers in favor of artificial intelligence. Around the world, 300 million jobs should be affected according to a report by the US bank Goldman Sachs. In the United States, one in two companies using ChatGPT has already made layoffs.

This is why the Minister of Economy also returned to the need to regulate this new technology. He says this “raises many ethical difficulties.” However, he does not want to block the application, as has been done in Italy.

“It will be much less funny”

Thus, the minister wonders about “the origin of the data”, about the remuneration of the press articles or the researchers who are “used by these machines”. But also in the indication of sources.

On this last point, Bruno Le Maire refers to the photorealistic montages that have flooded the web, particularly that of the Pope in a white down jacket. “It will be much less fun when you have a political figure who is going to make racist or homophobic comments, without specifying that it is a montage,” lamented the minister.

Such a video has already seen the light in the United States. On TikTok, a deepfake made racist comments to a high school principal.

But in parallel to supervision, Bruno Le Maire also insists on the “development” of companies and research in this field. He assures: “We have researchers in France, the CNRS, the CEA, a certain number of startups that are extraordinarily efficient in this area.” And to add: “How do we accelerate its development? That is another subject that is close to my heart.”