Artificial intelligence (AI) “may be” dangerous, according to US Vice President Joe Biden, while it is still unclear how the technology will affect society.
Biden said that technology companies have a responsibility to ensure their products are secure before being launched in his opening remarks to a meeting with advisers in the disciplines of science and technology on Tuesday, according to Al Jazeera.
At the beginning of a meeting of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, Vice President Joe Biden said, “Tech companies have a responsibility, in my view, to make sure their products are safe before they are made public.”
Biden said that it “remains to be seen” but “it could be” how harmful artificial intelligence is when questioned.
AI developers must take into account “possible threats to our society, to our economy, and our national security,” according to Biden. While AI may help in the battle against sickness and climate change, it should also be used to combat other problems.
The president asserted that social media’s impacts on young people’s mental health were evidence of the harm that emerging technologies may do if precautions are not taken.
Biden’s remarks come as the debate over how to regulate AI is intensifying, with some prominent voices calling for a halt to the development of the technology until safety precautions can be put in place.
In an open letter published last month, a number of individuals, including Elon Musk, Steve Wozniak, and others called for a moratorium on the use of artificial intelligence due to the “deep hazards to society and mankind” that the technology poses.
The letter was sent in reaction to the debut of GPT-4, the replacement for the ground-breaking AI chatbot ChatGPT.
According to GPT-4’s California-based creator OpenAI, the more recent platform may exhibit “human-level performance” under some circumstances, such passing the bar exam with a score in the top 10% of candidates.
