He’s the guy pushing Japan to embrace AI. But ChatGPT doesn’t even know who he is

‘I asked ChatGPT who Kono Taro is and he came back with the wrong answer,’ said the minister, who asks that his name be written in the Japanese style

The outspoken official, who lost to Fumio Kishida in a run-off vote two years ago, said the chatbot had identified him as the prime minister of Japan

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Japan’s digital reform minister pictured during a meeting of Group of Seven ministers last month. Kono Taro asks that his name be written in Japanese style, with surname first. Photo: Kyodo

Published: 9:30am, 15 May 2023

ChatGPT failed to correctly identify Japan’s digital transformation minister, even as he advocates for more use of artificial intelligence to help overcome labour shortages caused by a population decline.

“I asked ChatGPT who Kono Taro is and he came back with the wrong answer,” Kono said in an interview broadcast on Monday. “So you need to be careful,” he added. Kono asks that his name be written in the Japanese style, with surname first.

Kono was speaking as Prime Minister Fumio Kishida established a panel to look into the economic potential and risks of AI, seeking to take a lead on the regulation of the technology as this year’s chair of the Group of Seven wealthy democracies.

The group’s digital ministers last month agreed on an action plan for promoting “trustworthy AI”, and the European Union this month took a step towards more regulation of AI tools such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard.

A booth promoting ChatGPT is seen at an AI exposition in Tokyo last week. Photo: AFP

“Robots are not a threat to the labour force in Japan,” because of the shrinking population, Kono said. “We are more eager to try new AI technologies,” he added, saying the government was discussing data set creation with Microsoft Corp. and other providers of the technology. “The minority language data set compared to English is not big, so it could be skewed.”