President Biden wary of AI dangers, says tech companies must make sure products are safe

WASHINGTON – United States President Joe Biden said on Tuesday that it remains to be seen whether

artificial intelligence (AI) is dangerous,

but underscored that technology companies had a responsibility to ensure their products were safe before making them public.

Mr Biden told science and technology advisers that AI could help in addressing disease and climate change, but it was also important to address potential risks to society, national security and the economy.

“Tech companies have a responsibility, in my view, to make sure their products are safe before making them public,” he said at the start of a meeting of the President’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology (PCAST). When asked if AI was dangerous, he said, “It remains to be seen. Could be.”

He spoke on the same day his predecessor, former president Donald Trump, surrendered in New York over

charges stemming from a probe into hush money paid to a porn star.

Mr Biden declined to comment on Trump’s legal woes, and Democratic strategists say his focus on governing will create a politically advantageous split-screen of sorts as his former rival, a Republican, deals with his legal challenges.

The President said that s

ocial media had already illustrated the harm

that powerful technologies can do without the right safeguards, including on mental health.

“Absent safeguards, we see the impact on the mental health and self-images and feelings and hopelessness, especially among young people,” Mr Biden said. 

He reiterated a call for Congress to pass bipartisan privacy legislation to put limits on personal data that technology companies collect, ban advertising targeted at children and to prioritise health and safety in product development.

Shares of companies that employ AI dropped sharply before Mr Biden’s meeting, although the broader market was also selling off on Tuesday.

Shares of AI software company C3.ai were down 24 per cent, more than halving a four-session winning streak of nearly 40 per cent through Monday. Thailand security firm Guardforce AI fell 29 per cent, data analytics firm BigBear.ai was down 16 per cent and conversation intelligence company SoundHound AI was down 13 per cent late on Tuesday.

AI is becoming a hot topic for policymakers.

The tech ethics group Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Digital Policy has asked the US Federal Trade Commission to stop OpenAI from issuing new commercial releases of

GPT-4,

which has wowed and appalled users with its human-like abilities to generate written responses to requests.

Democratic US Senator Chris Murphy has urged society to pause as it considers the ramifications of AI.

In 2022, the Biden administration released a blueprint “Bill of Rights” to help ensure users’ rights are protected as technology companies design and develop AI systems. REUTERS