Biden Says 'Astounding Revelation' In AI Drives Commitments From Big Tech

Top tech giants on Friday joined the Biden administration in a pledge to adhere to voluntary guidelines aimed at mitigating risks associated with artificial intelligence.

President Joe Biden shed light on the endeavor in an address, stressing the enormity of AI’s potential while simultaneously underlining the risks it poses to the economy and national security.

He highlighted strides taken in the past year to guide responsible AI innovation, with the Biden administration introducing an "AI Bill of Rights" in October, while Biden issued an executive order in February to protect the public from discriminatory algorithms.

More to that, the president underscored a new AI foundation established earlier this year, "In May, we unveiled a new strategy to establish seven new AI research institutes to help drive breakthroughs in responsible AI intervention.”

Biden also outlined the guiding principles for the voluntary commitments made by the seven tech companies.

“These commitments which the companies will implement immediately underscore three fundamental principles. Safety, security and trust,” Biden explained.

Safety: Companies have an obligation to make sure their tech is safe before releasing it to the public, which includes testing the capabilities of their systems, assessing their potential risk and making the results of these assessments public, Biden said.

Security: Companies that signed the pledge must prioritize the security of their systems by safeguarding models against cyber threats, managing the risk to national security, and sharing the best practices and industry standards.

Trust: Biden said companies have a duty to earn the people’s trust, and empower users to make informed decisions by labeling content that has been altered or is AI generated.

He also said to expect more technological innovation in the next few years than we've seen in the last 50 years. "That has been an astounding revelation to me, quite frankly," he said.

In the coming weeks, Biden said his administration will continue to take executive action and seek to develop appropriate legislation and regulation with both parties in Congress.

The seven companies that voluntarily signed the pledge include:
Alphabet Inc GOOG GOOGL
Amazon.com, Inc AMZN
Microsoft Corporation MSFT
Meta Platforms Inc META
OpenAI
Anthropic
Inflection

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