US Vice President Kamala Harris speaks about the administrations investments and actions to combat the climate crisis, at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia, on February 8, 2023.
Cheney Orr | Afp | Getty Images
Vice President Kamala Harris will meet with the chief executives of Google, Microsoft, OpenAI and Anthropic Thursday to discuss the responsible development of artificial intelligence, the White House confirmed to CNBC Tuesday.
Harris will address the need for safeguards that can mitigate AI’s potential risks and emphasize the importance of ethical and trustworthy innovation, the White House said.
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The vice president will also be joined by other senior members of the Biden administration, including Gina Raimondo, the secretary of commerce; Jeff Zients, Biden’s chief of staff; Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security advisor and Arati Prabhakar, the director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, among others.
An invitation to the event, which was viewed by CNBC, said the officials plan to engage in a “frank discussion” with the CEOs about AI, particularly regarding the risks stemming from “current and near-term” development of the technology.
Representatives for Google and OpenAI did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A Microsoft spokesperson declined to comment. A representative for Anthropic confirmed the company will attend the meeting.
Generative AI has exploded into public consciousness after OpenAI released its viral new chatbot called ChatGPT late last year.
In the months since, Microsoft has been integrating OpenAI’s generative technology across many of its products as part of its multi-year, multi-billion-dollar investment in the company. Google launched a competing generative chatbot called Bard in February, and Anthropic announced its chatbot, Claude, in March.
While many experts are optimistic about the potential of generative AI, the technology has also inspired questions and concerns from regulators and tech industry giants. Geoffrey Hinton, known to some in the tech industry as “the godfather of AI,” left his longtime position at Google partly to share his concerns about the potential threat of AI, according to a report Monday. Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, SpaceX and Twitter, was one of more than 27,000 people to sign an open letter in March that called on AI labs to pause development.
The White House said Thursday’s meeting is part of the Biden administration’s broader effort to engage with experts about the technology and ensure that AI products are safe before they’re deployed to the public.
