In a scramble to remain relevant and to seem actually engaged with current events, the Biden White House recently met with Big Tech executives to discuss artificial intelligence (AI) amid burgeoning concerns about how chatbots impact privacy, information exchanges, employment, and fears that advanced technology may possibly replace humans someday.
For roughly two hours in the White House’s Roosevelt Room, Vice President Kamala Harris and other officials told the leaders of Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, the maker of the popular ChatGPT chatbot, and Anthropic, an A.I. start-up, to seriously consider concerns about the technology . . . . Biden also briefly stopped by the meeting.“What you’re doing has enormous potential and enormous danger,” Mr. Biden told the executives.It was the first White House gathering of major A.I. chief executives since the release of tools like ChatGPT, which have captivated the public and supercharged a race to dominate the technology.“The private sector has an ethical, moral and legal responsibility to ensure the safety and security of their products,” Ms. Harris said in a statement. “And every company must comply with existing laws to protect the American people.”
The administrations cyber-safety action plans include naming Harris as AI Czar.
The plan is to launch 25 research institutes across the US that will seek assurance from four companies, including Google, Microsoft and ChatGPT’s creator OpenAI, that they will ‘participate in a public evaluation.’Many of the world’s best minds have warned about the dangers of AI, specifically that it could destroy humanity if an assessment of risk is not done now.Tech giants like Elon Musk fear AI will soon surpass human intelligence and have independent thinking. This means it would no longer need or listen to humans, allowing it to steal nuclear codes, create pandemics and spark world wars.Vice President Kamala Harris – who has the lowest approval rating of any VP – will lead the containment effort as ‘AI czar’ with a budget of just $140 million. For comparison, Space Force has a budget of $30 billion.
As a reminder, Harris has also been designated Border Czar by Biden. The results have been less than impressive.
“Typically, the grading system goes A through F,” Beverly, of North Dakota, told Fox News. “I give her a Z.”…Harris hasn’t been to the border since a June 2021 trip to El Paso, Texas, despite subsequent visits to border states. Meanwhile, almost 2.8 million migrants crossed the southern border illegally between September 2021 and September 2022 — over 1 million more than the previous year, according to Customs and Border Protection.
Why has the administration made this move? In addition to trying to make Biden seem engaged with the modern world, it appears to be the first step in publicly transitioning Harris into a more robust executive role.
…Biden assigned himself a light schedule this week with no public events from Tuesday through Thursday, and let Vice President Kamala Harris take the lead on a meeting with companies on artificial intelligence.The only listed activity from Biden today was a private briefing with Harris, who will then meet with tech executives on AI and then depart to Richmond, Virginia, for an event on small businesses. The president is not listed as an attendee for either event.
Given Biden’s actions at recent engagements, this move may be a bit too late.
One last note: Professor Glenn Reynolds has an interesting take on the potential evolution of AI paired with robots, which could doom humanity.
How can sexy sexbots be an existential threat? Well, we’ve devastated populations of insects like screwflies, fruit flies, and (somewhat less successfully) mosquitoes by saturating them with sexy but sterile specimens to breed with. (This is called the Sterile Insect Technique). The result is a sharp drop in reproduction, and population.But even there, we’re not reaching full potential. The sterile specimens we use for those eradication efforts are just ordinary screwflies or mosquitoes, not extra-sexy specimens, optimized for attractiveness.Imagine sexbots – both male and female – that are aren’t just copies of attractive humans, but much more attractive than natural humans. Machine learning could find just the right physical and behavioral characteristics to appeal to humans, and then tweak them for each individual person. Maybe they even release pheromones. Your personal sexbot would be tailor-made, or self-tailored, to appeal to you. It might even be programmed to fall in love with its human.
Yes, there are valid concerns about how to best use the new technologies to heighten the quality of life for everyone. Unfortunately, I suspect Biden and Harris are more concerned about how to use AI to heighten the quality of their own power and influence (as well as that of the Democratic Party).
The only saving grace may be that Harris will be as motivated to work as AI issues as she has been in her work for border control.
Then, again, Biden may have found the perfect place for her:
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