President Joe Biden said Tuesday it remains to be seen if artificial intelligence is dangerous, but that he believes technology companies must ensure their products are safe before releasing them to the public.
Biden met with his council of advisers on science and technology about theĀ risksĀ andĀ opportunitiesĀ that rapid advancements in artificial intelligence pose for individual users and national security.
āAI can help deal with some very difficult challenges like disease and climate change, but it also has to address the potential risks to our society, to our economy, to our national security,ā Biden told the group, which includes academics as well as executives from Microsoft and Google.
Artificial intelligence burst to the forefront in the national and global conversation in recent months after the release of the popular ChatGPT AI chatbot, which helped sparkĀ a raceĀ among tech giants to unveil similar tools, while raising ethical and societal concerns about technology that can generate convincing prose or imagery that looks like itās the work of humans.
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The White House said the Democratic president was using the AI meeting to ādiscuss the importance of protecting rights and safety to ensure responsible innovation and appropriate safeguardsā and to reiterate his call for Congress to pass legislation to protect children and curtail data collection by technology companies.
Italy last weekĀ temporarily blocked ChatGPTĀ over data privacy concerns, and European Union lawmakers have been negotiating the passage of new rules to limit high-risk AI products across the 27-nation bloc.
The U.S. so far has taken a different approach. The Biden administration last yearĀ unveiled a set of far-reaching goalsĀ aimed at averting harms caused by the rise of AI systems, including guidelines for how to protect peopleās personal data and limit surveillance.
The Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights notably did not set out specific enforcement actions, but instead was intended as a call to action for the U.S. government to safeguard digital and civil rights in an AI-fueled world.
Bidenās council, known as PCAST, is composed of science, engineering, technology and medical experts and is co-chaired by the Cabinet-ranked director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Arati Prabhakar.
Asked if AI is dangerous, Biden said Tuesday, āIt remains to be seen. Could be.ā
AP writers Chris Megerian and Matt OāBrien contributed to this report.
