President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris met with CEOs of the nation’s top artificial intelligence companies on Thursday to discuss the potential risks of AI, an evolving technology with major applications in the field of healthcare and other industries.
Biden and Harris met with executives from top tech companies, including Microsoft, Google, Open AI and Anthropic, to outline the administration’s concerns about the potential risks of artificial intelligence and to ensure that new products are safe before they’re deployed.
“Administration officials and CEOs agreed that more work is needed to develop and ensure appropriate safeguards and protections, and CEOs committed to continue engaging with the Administration to ensure the American people are able to benefit from AI innovation,” said the White House in a statement about the meeting.
The popularity of AI platforms such as ChatGPT has been shown to have many potential healthcare benefits such as assisting physicians in medical diagnosis of diseases. Other forms of AI also have been found to be useful in monitoring and assessing the physical and mental well-being of patients.
Long-term care stakeholders also are experiencing a coming of age with regard to AI and machine learning and record keeping and patient information measurements, among others.
But in their meeting with tech leaders, Biden and Harris stressed that despite the many potential benefits of AI to society, tech leaders also need to be cognizant of the risks such as threats to individual privacy, national security and the spread of disinformation. They also indicated they would consider new legislation or regulations to mitigate the potential dangers of AI.
During their meeting, the Biden administration also announced $140 million in funding to promote responsible AI research and development with plans to launch seven new National AI Research Institutes. The Office of Management and Budget also will be soon releasing draft policy guidance for public comment on the use of AI by federal government agencies.
