After a reporter from the White House asked the executives of the big technology companies invited there if they were real or a product of artificial intelligence (AI) – any day the replicants of Blade Runner stop being science fiction – the US president burst into the room. “I am the AI,” he greeted.
Apart from joking, and the possibility that the Republican ultras take it literally and open an investigation to clarify whether Biden is a mutant, the frenetic development of artificial intelligence raises doubts for the developers of this technology, whose limits are unknown. More and more are wondering when the day will be when AI will be smarter than humanity itself.
Brad Smith (Microsoft), Nick Clegg (Meta), Kent Walker (Google), Greg Brockman (OpenAI company of the famous ChatGPT), Adam Selipsky (Amazon Web Services), Dario Amodei (Anthropic) and Mustafa Suleyman (Inflection AI) staged their voluntary commitment to mitigate the dangers of this emerging technology before the US president this Friday.
In part it is a way of limiting the fear that has been raised among many that there has been an imprudent initial deployment.
The industry-leading companies have pledged to allow independent security experts to test their systems before they are released to the public and to share data about the security of their systems with government and academics.
The firms also promised to develop mechanisms to alert users when an image, video or text is created by artificial intelligence, a method known as watermarking or digital watermark.
If they do not meet the requirements, companies will face possible sanctions from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). It would be classified as a deceptive practice, which would contravene the consumer protection law. Some of these companies have already started to develop warning labels.
“These commitments are real and concrete. They will help companies fulfill the fundamental obligation to citizens to offer safe products, reliable in their technology for the benefit of society, ”Biden said in his address.
The president pointed out that this was only a first step and that new laws and regulations are required in this matter.
He insisted that companies have to prioritize the security of their systems by putting protections and managing "the risk to our national security and guaranteeing best practices as well as privacy." He also indicated that companies agree that AI can help society face big challenges, from cancer to climate change, education or jobs.
Biden, already an octogenarian man, made a prediction. "We're going to see more technological change in the next ten years, or even less, than we've seen in 50. This has been an amazing revelation to me, frankly," he added.
"Artificial intelligence is going to transform the lives of people around the world and this group gathered here will be critical in developing this innovation responsibly," he claimed.
