On Thursday the Biden Administration announced that artificial intelligence companies on the cutting edge of technology would be among the more than 200 entitities looking to join a new consortium in the United States that support the safe development and deployment of generative A.I.
Announced by Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, the U.S. AI Safety Institute Consortium will include OpenAI, Google's Alphabet, Anthropic, Microsoft, Amazon, Apple and many others.
"The U.S. government has a significant role to play in setting the standards and developing the tools we need to mitigate the risks and harness the immense potential of artificial intelligence," Raimondo said in a statement.
The group of concern companies will be housed under the U.S. AI Safety Institute and is tasked with prioritizing actions laid out in President Joe Biden's AI executive order, which was issued in October 2023. These include, developing guidelines for red-teaming, capability evaluations, risk management, safety and security as well as watermarking synthetic content.
What Does This All Mean?
Major companies that work in artificial intelligence agreed to watermark AI-generated content to make the tech safer. Red-teaming is used in cybersecurity to identify new risks. The term is a no to the United States Cold War simulations where the enemy was codenamed "red team."
The executive order gave directives to set standards for testing and addressing related chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and cybersecurity risks. Last year, the Commerce Department announced it was taking steps toward composing key standards and guidance for the safe testing and deployment of artificial intelligence.
Generative AI has been depicted as being part devil and part angel by the general public. It can create text, photos and videos in response to open-ended prompts.
However, critics say it has the potential to make jobs obsolete, upend elections and even overpower humans. Efforts are currently being made in Congress to pass legislation that will address artificial intelligence, but that legislation has stalled despite numerous forums and legislative proposals.
