Washington, May 4 (EFE).- The Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris, warned on Thursday the executives of the four US firms at the forefront of the development of artificial intelligence (AI), with whom she met at the White House , which must guarantee the safety of the products that use this system.
“The private sector has an ethical, moral and legal responsibility to guarantee the safety of its products. And every business must comply with existing laws to protect the American people,” the vice president said in a statement.
Harris spoke after having received at the White House the CEOs of Microsoft, Satya Nadella; Alphabet and Google, Sundar Pichai; Anthropic, Dario Amodei, and OpenAI, Sam Altman.
“Advances in technology have always presented opportunities and risks, and AI is no different. It is one of the most powerful technologies today, with the potential to improve people’s lives and address some of society’s biggest challenges”, the vice president remarked.
At the same time, as he stressed, this technology “has the potential to drastically increase threats to safety and security, infringe civil rights and privacy, and erode public trust and faith in democracy.”
US President Joe Biden stopped by the meeting to “underscore that companies have a fundamental responsibility to ensure that their products are safe before distributing or presenting them in public,” said another White House statement.
Both Biden and Harris stressed the importance of “mitigating” the current and potential risks that AI can pose to individuals, society, and national security.
The meeting focused on three areas: the need for companies to be more transparent with politicians and the public about their AI systems; the importance of evaluating, verifying and validating the security of said systems; and the importance of ensuring that AI does not fall into the hands of “bad actors” and is targeted for attack.
The White House spokeswoman, Karine Jean-Pierre, added in her daily press conference that the conversation with the four executives was “frank and honest”, and she stressed that it is necessary for the platforms that develop AI to be “more transparent” about their systems with both politicians and the public.
Before the appointment, the Joe Biden Administration had already announced that large AI companies have agreed to undergo a public evaluation of their systems during the DEF CON 31 “hacker” event, which will be held in Las Vegas at the beginning of August. .
Prior to the meeting, the US advanced this Thursday that it will invest 140 million dollars to establish seven new artificial intelligence research institutes that will promote responsible innovation and ensure that advances serve the common good, which will bring the number to 25 total number of such centers in the country.
The Government will also issue new guidelines on the use of AI by government and federal agencies, to ensure that they respect the rights and safety of US citizens.
