A decision to appoint an 85-year-old as Italy’s artificial intelligence (AI) tsar has caused bafflement and stoked political tensions within the ruling coalition.

Giuliano Amato, a former prime minister and head of the constitutional court with no apparent IT expertise, will lead a new commission to assess the risks posed by the technology.

As Italy confronts the brave new world of artificial intelligence, critics suggested that Mr Amato might struggle to Google AI, let alone understand the fast-moving challenges of algorithms, machine learning and ChatGPT.

The choice of Mr Amato was unfavourably compared with his equivalent in Britain – 41-year-old Ian Hogarth, a Cambridge-educated computer science expert and tech entrepreneur who founded several start-ups and made a fortune investing in AI companies.

A leading authority on AI, Mr Hogarth was in June appointed the head of a £100 million taskforce looking into the risks surrounding AI, with Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, pledging to make the UK a global leader in AI regulation.