ChatGPT mistakes Japan’s chief AI advocate for prime minister

ChatGPT failed to correctly identify Japanese digital transformation minister Kono Taro, even as he advocates for more use of artificial intelligence to help overcome labor 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 with Bloomberg Television broadcast Monday. “So you need to be careful,” he added. Kono asks that his name be written in 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.