In an effort to address the growing concerns surrounding artificial intelligence (AI), the White House is hosting a meeting with CEOs of leading AI companies such as Google and Microsoft on May 4th.
The discussion will focus on the risks and safeguards associated with AI technologies, which have been attracting the attention of governments and lawmakers worldwide.
Generative AI on the rise
Generative AI applications, including ChatGPT, have become increasingly popular this year, prompting many companies to develop similar products with the potential to revolutionize various industries.
As millions of users begin to explore these tools, concerns are growing over the potential for privacy violations, biased employment decisions, and the facilitation of scams and misinformation campaigns.
The White House meeting aims to have an open conversation about the risks associated with current and near-term AI development.
High-profile attendees at the meeting will include Google’s Sundar Pichai, Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, and Anthropic’s Dario Amodei.
Vice President Kamala Harris and administration officials such as Biden’s Chief of Staff Jeff Zients, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, Director of the National Economic Council Lael Brainard, and Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo will also be present.
White House discusses investment and policy guidance
In advance of the White House meeting, the administration announced a $140 million investment from the National Science Foundation to launch seven new AI research institutes.
Additionally, the White House’s Office of Management and Budget will release policy guidance on AI usage within the federal government.
Leading AI developers, including Anthropic, Google, Hugging Face, NVIDIA, OpenAI, and Stability AI, will participate in a public evaluation of their AI systems at the AI Village at DEFCON 31, one of the world’s largest hacker conventions.
The evaluation will be conducted on a platform created by Scale AI and Microsoft.
AI technology is also expected to play an increasing role in political campaigns. The Republican National Committee recently produced a video featuring a dystopian future during a potential second Biden term, created entirely with AI imagery.
Compared to European governments, U.S. regulators have been less aggressive in implementing tech regulations and establishing strong rules on deep fakes and misinformation.
The administration official emphasized that the U.S. is not in a race and is working closely with the US-EU Trade & Technology Council on the issue.
In February, President Biden signed an executive order directing federal agencies to eliminate bias in their use of AI. The Biden administration has also released an AI Bill of Rights and a risk management framework.
Recently, the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division stated that they would use their legal authorities to combat AI-related harm.
Despite tech giants’ numerous commitments to fight disinformation and harmful content, research and news events indicate that their efforts have been largely unsuccessful.
Activist NGO Avaaz found that only about one in five fake news articles in English on six major social media platforms were tagged as misleading or removed, with articles in other European languages not being flagged at all.
