Explain the Global Interpreter Lock (GIL) in Python and its implications for multithreaded programs.

The Global Interpreter Lock (GIL) in Python is a mutex that protects access to Python objects, preventing multiple native threads from executing Python bytecode at once. This means that even though Python supports multithreading, the GIL only allows one thread to execute in the interpreter at any given time. This can be a bottleneck in CPU-bound and multithreaded programs, as it limits the true parallelism. However, it doesn't impact I/O-bound tasks much because while one thread is waiting for I/O, other threads can execute. To achieve true parallelism for CPU-bound tasks, developers often use multiprocessing, taking advantage of multiple processes and bypassing the GIL