White House announces artificial intelligence vows from big tech … but experts are unimpressed

The White House unveiled a list of commitments from seven leading technology companies aimed at addressing the risk associated with artificial intelligence (AI) on Friday.
The companies committed to focus on responsible AI development centered around principles of “safety, security, and trust,” but experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation that these commitments will not have a substantial impact.
“Everything will continue on essentially as normal,” Jake Denton, a research associate at The Heritage Foundation’s Tech Policy Center told the DCNF. “This voluntary commitment is toothless. There’s really no indication of the enforcement … This is a potential victory lap moment for the Biden-Harris administration. They’re going to tout their accomplishments on AI to the end of the day, and this really does nothing.”

The White House released a list of promises by seven top technology firms to “manage the risks” of artificial intelligence (AI) on Friday, but experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation they will not have significant impact.

Seven Big Tech companies — Amazon, Anthropic, Google, Inflection, Meta, Microsoft, and OpenAI — made immediate “voluntary commitments” to promote responsible AI development focusing on “three principles that must be fundamental to the future of AI – safety, security, and trust,” according to the White House fact sheet. These commitments are only a symbolic victory, or a decent starting point, and will not be meaningfully effective, experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

“It’s a good place to start, as the industry is moving faster than formal regulation can keep up,” senior economist at the Foundation for American Innovation Samuel Hammond told the DCNF.

The voluntary commitments include issuing public reports on AI’s “capabilities, limitations, and areas of appropriate and inappropriate use,” like its impacts on “fairness and bias,” according to the fact sheet. Another commitment is to conduct research on preventing AI risks including “harmful bias and discrimination, and protecting privacy.”

There is also a commitment to develop AI systems to help solve societal issues like cancer and climate change, according to the fact sheet.

President Biden announces an agreement for responsible innovation in development of artificial intelligence (AI) among seven of the leading AI companies. The president said the agreement will be implemented immediately and is focused on safety, security, and trust. pic.twitter.com/bwVaGO2HWg

— CSPAN (@cspan) July 21, 2023

Hammond was not optimistic that these commitments will be a long-term solution to tackling the risks of AI and said that “this at best buys the industry and lawmakers time to find a consensus on which rules of the road will require the force of law.”

Jake Denton, a research associate at The Heritage Foundation’s Tech Policy Center, told the DCNF that these commitments will not have any influence on AI companies.

“Everything will continue on essentially as normal,” Denton said. “This voluntary commitment is toothless. There’s really no indication of the enforcement … This is a potential victory lap moment for the Biden-Harris administration. They’re going to tout their accomplishments on AI to the end of the day, and this really does nothing.”

On June 19, the day before Biden’s Silicon Valley roundtable with AI critics, the president attended a fundraiser hosted by Microsoft Chief Technology Officer Kevin Scott, according to Reuters. Microsoft is a multibillion-dollar backer of OpenAI, the maker of the popular AI chatbot ChatGPT.

“It’s a pretty clear signal to the American people that Microsoft will determine the fate of their own technology,” Denton said. “It’s very obvious they’re calling the shots and the Biden administration just along for the ride.”

The Biden administration is also planning to develop an executive order and seek bipartisan legislation to “help America lead the way in responsible innovation” regarding AI, according to the fact sheet.

“I think that that’s where we see the left working … they get one bite at the apple and they’re just going to keep going,” Charles Sauer, founder and president of the Market Institute, told the DCNF.

Rather than Big Tech influencing the Biden administration, Sauer told the DCNF he sees it “as kind of the government strong-arming these companies.”

“I think that realistically what we need as a country is the separation of tech and state,” he said. “We need to keep the government out of new innovations and that’s how we’re going to see growth.”

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

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