Add Category
Seven companies leading the development of artificial intelligence have made voluntary commitments to the White House to implement measures, such as watermarking AI-generated content, to help make the technology safer.
At a White House event, US President Joe Biden addressed growing concerns about the potential for AI to be used for disruptive purposes and the "fundamental obligation" companies have to ensure their products are safe.
"We must be clear eyed and vigilant about the threats emerging technologies can pose," he said.
"Social media has shown us the harm that powerful technology can do without the right safeguards in place.
"These commitments are a promising step, but we have a lot more work to do together."
Alphabet, Meta, Amazon, Anthropic, Inflection, OpenAI and its partner Microsoft pledged to thoroughly test systems before releasing them and share information about how to reduce risks and invest in cybersecurity.
"We welcome the president's leadership in bringing the tech industry together to hammer out concrete steps that will help make AI safer, more secure, and more beneficial for the public," Microsoft said in a blog post on Friday.
As part of the effort, the seven companies committed to developing a system to "watermark" all forms of content, from text, images, audios, to videos generated by AI so that users will know when the technology has been used.
This watermark, embedded in the content in a technical manner, presumably will make it easier for users to spot deep-fake images or audios that may, for example, show violence that has not occurred, create a better scam or distort a photo of a politician to put the person in an unflattering light.
It is unclear how the watermark will be evident in the sharing of the information.
The companies also pledged to focus on protecting users' privacy as AI develops and on ensuring that the technology is free of bias and not used to discriminate against vulnerable groups.
Some of the commitments call for third-party oversight of the workings of the next generation of AI systems, though they don't detail who will audit the technology or hold the companies accountable.
Other commitments include developing AI solutions to scientific problems like medical research and mitigating climate change.
US lags behind EU in AI regulation
The move is seen as a win for the Biden administration's effort to regulate the technology, which has experienced a boom in investment and consumer popularity.
Since generative AI that can write convincingly human-like text and churn out new images became wildly popular this year, politicians around the world began considering how to mitigate its dangers to national security and the economy.
In June, EU politicians agreed to a set of draft rules where systems like ChatGPT would have to disclose AI-generated content, help distinguish so-called deep-fake images from real ones and ensure safeguards against illegal content.
US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer in June called for "comprehensive legislation" to advance and ensure safeguards on artificial intelligence.
Congress is considering a bill that would require political ads to disclose whether AI was used to create imagery or other content.
Mr Biden said he is also working on developing an executive order and bipartisan legislation on AI technology.
"We'll see more technology change in the next 10 years, or even in the next few years, than we've seen in the last 50 years. That has been an astounding revelation to me, quite frankly," Mr Biden said.
Reuters/AP