The President of the United States, Joe Biden has claimed that artificial intelligence (AI) which is fast gaining prominence ‘could be’ dangerous but it remains to be seen how the technology will affect society generally.
While making remarks at the beginning of a meeting with science and technology advisers on Tuesday, Biden said technology companies had a responsibility to ensure their products are safe before their release.
‘Tech companies have a responsibility, in my view, to make sure their products are safe before making them public,’ Biden said at the opening of a meeting of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
When quizzed if AI was dangerous, Biden said it ‘remains to be seen’ but ‘it could be’.
Biden pointed out that AI could be of great help in tackling challenges like disease and climate change but that developers of the technology would also have to address “potential risks to our society, to our economy, to our national security”.
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The president said the effects of social media on young people’s mental health showed the harm new technologies can inflict if safeguards are not in place.
Biden’s remarks come amid growing debate about how to regulate AI, with some prominent voices calling for a pause on the development of the technology until safeguards can be put in place.
Africa Today News, New York reports that in an open letter published last month, a number of tech leaders including Tesla founder Elon Musk and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak called for a pause on the rollout of AI due to the technology’s ‘profound risks to society and humanity.’
The latter came in response to the release of GPT-4, the follow-up to the revolutionary AI chatbot ChatGPT.