The White House informed reporters on Tuesday that Vice President Kamala Harris will meet with the CEOs of Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Anthropic on Thursday to discuss the ethical development of artificial intelligence.
According to the White House, Harris will discuss the need for controls that might reduce the hazards that AI could pose as well as the need of morally sound and reliable innovation.
Along with the vice president, other prominent Biden administration officials will attend, including the secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, the Chief of Staff Jeff Zients, the national security Adviser Jake Sullivan, and the director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy Arati Prabhakar, among others.
The officials want to have a “frank discussion” with the CEOs about the hazards associated with AI’s “current and near-term” growth, according to an invitation to the event.
Requests for comment from Google and OpenAI representatives were not immediately fulfilled. A Microsoft representative declined to respond. Anthropic will attend the meeting, according to a company spokeswoman.
After OpenAI released its wildly popular new chatbot called ChatGPT late last year, generative AI has shot to the top of the public’s consciousness.
As part of its multi-year, multi-billion dollar investment in the firm, Microsoft has been incorporating OpenAI’s generative technology into several of its products over the past few months. In February, Google unveiled Bard, a competing generative chatbot; in March, Anthropic unveiled Claude, a chatbot.
Although many experts are bullish about the potential of generative AI, regulators and titans of the tech industry have expressed doubts and worries about the technology. According to a report published on Monday, Geoffrey Hinton, who some in the tech sector refer to as “the godfather of AI,” departed Google in part to express his worries about the possible danger posed by AI. More than 27,000 people, including Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, and Twitter, signed an open letter in March urging AI labs to halt their research.
The meeting on Thursday, according to the White House, is part of a larger initiative by the Biden administration to consult with technology experts and make sure that AI products are secure before they are made available to the general public.
