The White House will host its first meeting of CEOs from companies building artificial intelligence since a Thursday Boom in AI-powered chatbots has led to growing calls for regulation of the technology.
Vice President Kamala Harris and other administration officials are scheduled to meet with the leaders Google, Microsoft, OpenAIthe maker of the popular chatbot ChatGPT, and anthropican AI startup to discuss the technology.
The White House wanted to make it clear to companies that they have a responsibility to address the risks of new AI developments. “We want to have an open discussion about the risks we all see in current and near-term AI development, actions to mitigate those risks, and other ways we can work together to ensure that the American people benefit from advances in AI.” benefits while being protected from harm,” said Arati Prabhakar, director of the White House office for science and technology policy, in an invitation to the meeting, seen by the New York Times.
Hours before the meeting, the White House announced that the National Science Foundation plans to spend $140 million on new research centers for AI. The administration also pledged to release draft guidelines for government agencies to ensure their use of AI “protects the rights of the American people and security,” adding that several AI companies had agreed to demonstrate their products at a cybersecurity conference in August to be made available for examination.
The White House is under increasing pressure to oversee an AI capable of creating sophisticated prose and lifelike imagery. The explosion of interest in the technology began last year when OpenAI released ChatGPT to the public and people immediately started using it to look for information, do schoolwork and help them with their jobs. Since then, some of the biggest tech companies have rushed to integrate chatbots into their products and accelerated AI researchwhile venture capitalists have poured money into AI startups.
But the AI boom has also raised questions about how the technology will transform economies, shake up geopolitics and fuel criminal activity. Critics have feared that many AI systems are opaque but extremely powerful, with the potential to make discriminatory decisions, replace people in their jobs, spread disinformation, and perhaps even break the law themselves.
President Biden said recently that it “remains to be seen” whether AI is dangerous, and some of its top officials have pledged to step in if the technology is used in malicious ways.
Spokespersons for Google, Microsoft and OpenAI declined to comment before the White House meeting. A spokesman for Anthropic confirmed the company’s participation.
The announcements build on previous government efforts to set guard rails for AI. Last year, the White House released what it called a draft AI regulation, which said automated systems should protect user privacy, protect them from discriminatory outcomes, and make it clear why certain actions were taken. In January, the Department of Commerce also released a risk mitigation framework for AI development that has been in the works for years.
The introduction of chatbots like ChatGPT and Google’s Bard has put governments under enormous pressure to act. The European Union, which had already negotiated regulations for AI, was faced with new demands to regulate a broader range of AI, rather than only regulating systems considered inherently high risk.
In the United States, members of Congress, including Senator Chuck Schumer from New York, the majority leader, have moved to drafting or proposing legislation to regulate AI. However, concrete steps to contain the technology in the country are more likely to come from law enforcement in Washington.
A group of government agencies pledged in April to “oversee the development and use of automated systems and encourage responsible innovation” while punishing law breakers committed with the technology.
In an op-ed piece in The Times on Wednesday, Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan said, said the nation was at a “key decision point” with AI. She compared the technology’s recent developments to the birth of tech giants like Google and Facebook, and warned that without proper regulation, the technology could consolidate the power of the biggest tech companies and give scammers a potent tool.
“As the use of AI becomes more widespread, officials have a responsibility to ensure this hard-learned history does not repeat itself,” she said.
