WASHINGTON/NEW YORK, July 21 (Portal) – AI companies including OpenAI, Alphabet (GOOGL.O) and Meta Platforms (META.O) have voluntarily committed to the White House to implement measures such as watermarking AI-generated content to make the technology more secure, President Joe Biden announced on Friday.
“These pledges are an encouraging step, but we have much more work to do together,” Biden said.
At a White House event, Biden addressed growing concerns about the potential use of artificial intelligence for disruptive purposes, saying, “We must be clear-eyed and vigilant about the threats to US democracy posed by new technologies.”
The companies — which also include Anthropic, Inflection, Amazon.com (AMZN.O), and OpenAI partner Microsoft (MSFT.O) — pledged to thoroughly test systems before release and share information on how to reduce risk and invest in cybersecurity.
The move is seen as a victory for the Biden administration’s efforts to regulate the technology, which has seen a boom in investment and consumer popularity.
“We applaud the president’s leadership in bringing the technology industry together to work out concrete steps that will help make AI safer and more beneficial to the public,” Microsoft said in a blog post on Friday.
With generative AI, which uses data to create new content like ChatGPT’s human-sounding prose, gaining popularity this year, lawmakers around the world began thinking about how to mitigate the new technology’s threats to national security and the economy.
The US lags behind the EU in regulating artificial intelligence. In June, EU lawmakers agreed on a set of draft rules that would require systems like ChatGPT to disclose AI-generated content, help distinguish so-called deep-fake images from real ones, and protect against illegal content.
AI (Artificial Intelligence) letters and robotic hand miniature in this illustration taken June 23, 2023. Portal/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/
In June, the majority in the US Senate, Chuck Schumer, called for “comprehensive legislation” to promote and ensure the protection of artificial intelligence.
Congress is considering a bill that would require disclosure of whether AI was used to create images or other content in political ads.
Biden, who received executives from the seven companies at the White House on Friday, said he is also working on drafting an executive order and bipartisan legislation on AI technology.
“We will see more technological changes in the next 10 years or even next few years than in the last 50 years. To be honest, that was an amazing revelation for me,” Biden said.
As part of that effort, the seven companies pledged to develop a system that can watermark all forms of content, from text, images, audio to AI-generated video, so users know when the technology has been used.
This watermark, technically embedded in the content, will presumably make it easier for users to spot fake images or audio that, for example, show violence that didn’t happen, is a better scam, or distorts a photo of a politician to paint the person in an unfavorable light.
It’s unclear how the watermark will be visible when the information is shared.
The companies also pledged to focus on protecting user privacy as AI advances, ensuring the technology is free of bias and not used to discriminate against vulnerable groups. Other engagements include developing AI solutions for scientific problems such as medical research and mitigating climate change.
Reporting by Diane Bartz in Washington and Krystal Hu in New York; additional reporting by Jarrett Renshaw, Steve Holland and Jeff Mason; Adaptation by Matthew Lewis, Marguerita Choy and Diane Craft
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