Google, Amazon, Meta, ChatGPT and other tech firms agree to Joe Biden’s new AI safeguards to minimize abuse and bias amid worries of misuse

Seven leading AI companies have agreed to new safeguards brokered by President Joe Biden’s administration designed to minimize abuse and bias as concerns about artificial intelligence misuse mount.

Executives from Amazon, Anthropic, Google, Inflection, Meta (the parent company of Facebook and Instgram), Microsoft and OpenAI (the creator of ChatGPT) will join Biden at the White House on Friday for the official announcement of the voluntary pledges.

The companies, under the agreement released by the White House, will subject new artificial intelligence systems to internal and external testing before release and ask outside teams to examine their systems for security flaws, discriminatory tendencies or risks to Americans’ rights, health information or safety.

The companies have also committed to methods of reporting vulnerabilities in their systems.

And will also use digital watermarking to differentiate between real photos and video and the AI-generated images known as deepfakes.

The move stems from concerns about fake content being taken for reality and concerns about bias against conservatives. New AI tools enable the evolving technology to convincingly write human-like text and produce new images that enable disinformation campaigns.

The companies have agreed to publicly report flaws and risks in their technology, including effects on fairness and bias, the White House said.

“We need to make sure that the companies pressure test their products as they develop them and certainly before they release them to make sure they don’t have any unintended consequences, such as being vulnerable to cyberattacks or being used to discriminate against certain people,” said Jeff Zients, White House chief of staff. Bloomberg News in an interview. “And the most important thing – and you see it in all the work – is that they can’t check their own homework here.”

Biden’s action is seen as an immediate way to address risk ahead of a longer-term push to get Congress to pass laws regulating the technology.

The White House is becoming increasingly involved in the growing debate over artificial intelligence. In May, Vice President Kamala Harris received technology leaders at the White House to tell them to seriously consider their concerns about the technology.

Consumer advocates welcomed the White House’s move, but warned that tech companies have a spotty history of delivering on their safety and security commitments.

“History would indicate that many technology companies are not actually walking the walk based on a voluntary commitment to act responsibly and support strict regulation,” Jim Steyer, the founder and CEO of advocacy group Common Sense Media, said in a statement.

Under the new guidelines, companies are only required to report — rather than eliminate — risks such as potential inappropriate use or bias.

The watermarking system has yet to be developed and there are concerns that malicious actors seeking to spread disinformation on the internet could easily remove it even after that.

The use of artificial intelligence is on the rise.

For example, within two months of its launch, ChatGPT had more than 100 million monthly active users – reaching that growth milestone much faster than TikTok and Instagram.

But research has shown that the platform has a “pro-environmental, left-libertarian orientation.” Brookings Institute noted in a report on AI.

The Biden administration is trying to regulate discrimination in AI.

In April, the Department of Commerce’s National Artificial Intelligence Advisory Committee convened top technologists and academics to discuss how the government could regulate AI.