Tech giants begin work with Biden administration on AI development
Seven major tech companies Friday agreed to comply with several dicta on artificial intelligence development set by the Biden administration during a meeting at the White House.
Executives from Microsoft, Google, Meta, Amazon Web Services, OpenAI, Inflection AI and Anthropic met with Biden to pledge their commitment to the rules. While the commitment is voluntary for now, it is expected to be mandated through an executive order in the coming months.
One of the White House’s chief demands was that AI systems avoid “harmful bias and discrimination”, raising concerns that the government will continue censoring Americans to prevent “hate speech”.
“The companies commit to prioritizing research on the societal risks that AI systems can pose, including on avoiding harmful bias and discrimination, and protecting privacy,” said a White House fact sheet. “The track record of AI shows the insidiousness and prevalence of these dangers, and the companies commit to rolling out AI that mitigates them.”
Elsewhere the White House again invokes “harm and discrimination”:
Today’s announcement is part of a broader commitment by the Biden-Harris Administration to ensure AI is developed safely and responsibly, and to protect Americans from harm and discrimination.
While a judge recently ruled that the Biden administration is prohibited from further colluding with tech companies to suppress Americans — a ruling that has since been temporarily suspended — the administration hopes to reverse the decision on appeal and continue operating its censorship apparatus.
Other rules put forth by the administration include “technical collaboration” between tech giants and government officials and reporting on AI development. The corporations should also publish public reports on their AI technology’s “capabilities, limitations, and areas of appropriate and inappropriate use.” When AI content is generated, they should ensure it contains some sort of watermark to notify users that it is AI-created.
The companies should also focus on using AI to “fight climate change”:
The companies commit to develop and deploy advanced AI systems to help address society’s greatest challenges. From cancer prevention to mitigating climate change to so much in between, AI—if properly managed—can contribute enormously to the prosperity, equality, and security of all.
But in addition to censorship, stakeholders are concerned about the implications of government control over artificial intelligence, which top tech experts warn is a dangerously powerful technology.
But to the chagrin of such critics, the Biden administration promises to commandeer AI and ensure that governments around the world do the same.
“The Biden-Harris Administration will continue to take executive action and pursue bipartisan legislation to help America lead the way in responsible innovation and protection,” the White House continued. “As we advance this agenda at home, we will work with allies and partners on a strong international code of conduct to govern the development and use of AI worldwide.”
Experts and tech industry leaders have been issuing dire warnings about the dangers of AI, whose awesome power they say threatens human existence. To guarantee humanity’s safety, they propose entrusting that power to globalist governments, which critics say may be no less dangerous.
Last month, a bipartisan group of senators led by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) announced a series of three closed-door briefings on AI for senators this summer, the first such briefings on artificial intelligence.
Legislation introduced in May in the Senate also aims to bring artificial intelligence under government control.
The Digital Platform Commission Act of 2023, sponsored by Democrat Senators Michael Bennett (D-CO) and Peter Welch (D-VT), would create a federal agency of “experts” with the power to govern artificial intelligence platforms down to their algorithms.
Without such regulation, says the bill, digital platforms produce “demonstrable harm” such as “abetting the collapse of trusted local journalism,” “disseminating disinformation and hate speech,” “radicalizing individuals to violence,” “perpetuating discriminatory treatment of communities of color and underserved populations,” “enabling addiction” and other maladies.
“We need to empower an agency that issues a license [to develop AI] and can take it away,” said Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who has said more than once that Ukraine’s victory against Russia is “the most important thing in the world”. Graham concluded, “Wouldn’t that be some incentive to do it right if you could actually be taken out of business?”
