The Biden administration is silent on whether it’s worried about the rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) or whether it believes it should be regulated at the federal level, as both Democratic and Republican lawmakers, as well as some tech moguls, look forward to government intervention push.
When asked for comment on the matter Wednesday morning, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre referred Fox News Digital to the National Security Council (NSC), which serves as Biden’s “principal forum for discussing national security and foreign policy matters with his or her senior advisers and cabinet officials.”
Although the NSC signaled that it would quickly respond to Fox News’ request, after more than 24 hours, the NSC had no comment on the Biden administration’s response to the call for a moratorium on AI development.
The White House’s silence on the rise of AI comes after a letter signed by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and other tech giants called “profound risks to society and humanity” and a six-month hiatus for advanced AI demanded developments. If
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When asked for comment on the rise of AI Wednesday morning, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre referred Fox News Digital to the National Security Council, which did not respond to Fox News’ request for comment. (Anna Moneymaker, Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
The letter called on AI developers to “stop training AI systems that are more powerful than GPT-4 immediately for at least 6 months.” If the moratorium cannot be implemented quickly, “governments should step in and implement a moratorium,” the letter added.
The letter was issued by the Future of Life Institute and signed by more than 1,000 people, including Musk, who argued that safety protocols must be developed by independent overseers to guide the future of AI systems. GPT-4 is the latest OpenAI deep learning modelwhich, according to the lab, “demonstrates human-level performance across various professional and academic benchmarks.”
“Powerful AI systems should only be developed when we are certain that their impact is positive and their risks manageable,” the letter reads.
Since its release last year, OpenAI’s Microsoft-backed ChatGPT has prompted competitors to accelerate the development of similarly sized language models and companies to incorporate generative AI models into their products.
The letter warned that at this point, no one can “understand, predict, or reliably control” the powerful new tools being developed in AI labs. The undersigned tech experts cite the risks of propaganda and lies being spread by AI-generated articles that appear genuine, and even the possibility that AI programs can outperform workers and render jobs obsolete.
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The signers, which include Emad Mostaque, CEO of Stability AI, are researchers at Alphabet’s own DeepMindand AI heavyweights Yoshua Bengio and Stuart Russell, stressing that AI development in general should not be paused, writing that their letter is “merely a retreat from the dangerous race to ever-larger, unpredictable black-box models with emerging Capabilities.”
Tesla CEO Elon Musk, pictured here, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and other tech leaders in an open letter on Wednesday called “profound risks to society and humanity” and called for a six-month hiatus on advanced AI developments. (Patrick Pleul – Pool/Getty Images)
Despite the White House’s relative silence on potentially disruptive developments in AI, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle in the 118th Congress appear to be finding common ground in calling for oversight of the burgeoning technology.
“I think what you need to do is identify what isn’t allowed in terms of ethics and illegal activity, whether it’s AI or not – you impose the same level of ethics and privacy on AI activity that you do.” do for other competencies today,” GOP Sen. Mike Rounds, a chair of the Senate AI Caucus, told Fox News Digital on Wednesday.
Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., pointed out that the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which he chairs, recently held a hearing on the “pros and cons” of AI technology.
“I intend to have a series of hearings on homeland security and government affairs on the subject of AI and what we should be thinking about,” Peters said.
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Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., who last week sent a letter to the heads of tech companies urging them to consider child safety when adopting AI systems like chatbots, suggested that an agency this could be created to regulate the relatively unconstrained AI industry “long term”. For now, however, the senator said those companies need to self-monitor.
“I think we have a role to play,” he said when asked if Congress should step in to regulate AI. “In the long run I think what we could do is set up an agency here. They can negotiate on behalf of the American people, so we can actually negotiate about privacy… In the short term, I think it’s going to be important for technology to monitor itself.”
Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., suggests that an agency could be created to regulate the relatively unconstrained AI industry “in the long term.” (Rod Lambey-Pool/Getty Images)
Over on the side of the house Representative Ken Buck, R-Colo., a leader in efforts to crack down on big tech also urged Congress to take the reins.
“With the advent of AI come both opportunities and challenges. We’ve seen the impact and fallout of a decade of inaction on big tech. Congress cannot afford to be caught asleep behind the wheel again to spread propaganda, dangerously restructure our economy and increase the size of the current big tech monopolies,” Buck told Fox News Digital.
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On the other hand, Senator JD Vance, R-Ohio, believes it’s too early for congressional intervention in the AI world.
“It is far too early to tell what role Congress should play. I think we need to understand this a little better now. “So I wouldn’t want to commit to a congressional strategy before we even understand the issue.”
Fox News’ Chris Pandolfo and Elizabeth Elkind contributed to this article.
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