The White House stated on Friday that seven major American A.I. businesses had agreed to voluntary controls on the technology’s development and had pledged to work towards safety, security, and trust even as they competed for the potential of artificial intelligence.
At a meeting with President Biden at the White House on Friday afternoon, the seven businesses — Amazon, Anthropic, Google, Inflection, Meta, Microsoft, and OpenAI — will formally declare their support for the new standards.
The announcement comes as the businesses compete to develop the most advanced A.I. technologies that enable automated production of text, images, music, and videos. However, as self-aware computers develop, there are growing concerns that the tools may disseminate misinformation and ominous warnings of a “risk of extinction” as a result.
Facebook’s parent company, Meta, introduced its own artificial intelligence tool, Llama 2, on Wednesday and promised to make the source code available to the public. In a statement, Meta’s president of international relations, Nick Clegg, stated that his organisation supports the precautions created by the White House.
Along with others in the industry, we are happy to make these voluntary pledges, Mr. Clegg said. They set an example for other governments to follow and are a crucial first step in ensuring that responsible guardrails be developed for artificial intelligence.
As Washington and governments around the world put in place legal and regulatory frameworks for the development of artificial intelligence, the voluntary protections outlined on Friday are merely a first step. Officials from the White House stated that the administration was drafting an executive order that would go beyond Friday’s announcement and promote the creation of bipartisan legislation.
The administration stated in a statement announcing the agreements that “companies that are developing these emerging technologies have a responsibility to ensure their products are safe.” The corporations must, according to the statement, “uphold the highest standards to ensure that innovation doesn’t come at the expense of Americans’ rights and safety.”