President Biden said Tuesday that the jury is still out on whether or not artificial intelligence technology is dangerous.
“It remains to be seen. It could be,” the president said, speaking at a meeting with science and technology advisers on Tuesday.
Biden also stressed the importance of addressing potential risks, saying he believes tech companies “have a responsibility” to ensure the safety of their products before releasing them into the world.
“Social media has already shown us the harm that powerful technologies can do without the right safeguards in place. Absent safeguards, we see the impact on the mental health and self-images and feelings and hopelessness, especially among young people,” he told the Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, or PCAST.
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The president also called on Congress to pass bipartisan privacy legislation that he said imposes strict limits on personal data that tech companies collect and would require companies to put health and safety first in the products that they build.
“AI can help deal with some very difficult challenges like disease and climate change, but we also have to address the potential risks to our society, to our economy, to our national security,” said Biden.
PCAST is composed of experts outside the federal government charged with making science, technology and innovation policy recommendations to the White House. It is co-chaired by the Cabinet-ranked director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Arati Prabhakar.
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The group includes academics, as well as executives from tech giants Microsoft and Google.
Last year, the Biden administration unveiled goals aimed at averting harms caused by the rise of artificial intelligence systems, including guidelines for how to protect people’s personal data and limit surveillance. The blueprint “Bill of Rights” did not set out specific enforcement actions.
Artificial intelligence has been at the forefront of the national and global conversation in recent months as companies rolled out chatbots like the OpenAI ChatGPT and Google’s Bard.
Last week Italy temporarily blocked ChatGPT over privacy concerns.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) called last Thursday for countries to implement its global ethical framework immediately following pleas by more than a thousand tech workers for a pause in the training of the most powerful AI systems.
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
