Top Tech Companies Promise White House to Implement AI Safeguards

Today, President Biden welcomed executives from seven leading AI companies to have them commit to developing these emerging technologies in a responsible manner. The companies who agreed to make these voluntary commitments include Amazon, Anthropic, Google, Inflection, Meta, Microsoft, and OpenAI.

“Companies that are developing these emerging technologies have a responsibility to ensure their products are safe. To make the most of AI’s potential, the Biden-Harris Administration is encouraging this industry to uphold the highest standards to ensure that innovation doesn’t come at the expense of Americans’ rights and safety,” the White House explained in a press release today.

As a part of the new commitments, these seven companies have agreed to have their AI systems tested by independent experts to establish how they could impact security and society as a whole. The companies also commit to building systems that put security first and facilitate the discovery of vulnerabilities in their AI systems by third parties.

To build trust in AI products, these companies also commit to developing a watermarking system to make it clear to users when content has been created by AI. You may remember the AI-generated picture of Pope Francis wearing a Balenciaga coat, but we shouldn’t underestimate the geopolitical risks of using AI technology to imitate the look and voice of public personalities.

“There is much more work underway. The Biden-Harris Administration is currently developing an executive order and will pursue bipartisan legislation to help America lead the way in responsible innovation, the White House said today.

While it’s good to see top leading companies make voluntary commitments to develop responsible AI, the competition in that field isn’t going to slow down. Microsoft is currently working on bringing AI to all of its products including  Windows 11, while Apple is reportedly working on its own alternative to ChatGPT. According to the Wall Street Journal, Sergey Brin, one of the co-founders of Google is back at work to help the company’s AI researchers develop Gemini, Google’s next-gen AI model.