White House: Big tech CEOs should be responsible for AI safety

The Joe Biden administration invited Big Tech CEOs, who are at the forefront of artificial intelligence (AI), such as Google and Microsoft (MS), to the White House on Thursday (local time) to hold an AI countermeasure meeting. While ramifications of AI technology are rapidly spreading, starting with “ChatGPT,” a go-to example of generative AI, having this meeting demonstrates that the U.S. government is also taking AI issues seriously.

President Biden stopped by for a moment at the meeting presided over by Vice President Kamala Harris and said, “What you are doing has tremendous potential and danger.” He also emphasized in his Twitter post that day, “I stopped by to mention how important it is to innovate responsibly and to protect people’s rights and safety. AI is one of the most powerful tools of our time, but to capitalize on this opportunity, we must first minimize its risks.”

Four industry-leading CEOs attended the meeting: Google CEO Sundar Pichai, MS CEO Satya Nadella, ChatGPT developer OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and AI startup Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei. At the White House, Vice President Kamala Harris, Chief of Staff to the President Jeff Giants, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, and National Economic Council Chairman Lael Brainard attended the meeting.

Foreign media reported that at the meeting that lasted about two hours that day, the White House focused on security and safety issues related to AI technology. "The private sector said it was ethically, morally, and legally responsible for the safety and security of their products," Vice President Harris said in a statement after the meeting. She also noted that “the Biden administration is open to advancing new regulations on AI and supporting legislation.”


Jeong-Soo Hong hong@donga.com