On Tuesday, President Joe Biden delivered brief remarks on artificial intelligence risks at the opening of a meeting with the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology at the White House. The remarks come in the context of increasing worry about generative AI and its potential threats to society and controversial calls for regulatory oversight of the fast-growing industry.
“AI can help deal with some very difficult challenges like disease and climate change,” Biden said, according to a transcript provided by the White House. “But we also have to address the potential risks to our society, to our economy, to our national security.”
Last week, a group of AI researchers, pundits, and critics called for a six-month pause in the development of AI systems “more powerful” than OpenAI’s GPT-4. GPT-4 is a multimodal AI model that can analyze text and images and generate human-like responses. That letter, which has proven controversial among AI experts, called for potential government action if necessary and “new and capable regulatory authorities dedicated to AI.”