Seven leading technology companies, including %Microsoft ($MSFT) and %Alphabet ($GOOGL), have voluntarily promised to ensure that %ArtificialIntelligence (A.I.) applications are safe and secure.
The pledge comes ahead of a meeting today (July 21) between the tech companies and U.S. President Joe Biden at the White House.
The other tech companies promising to make A.I. safe for consumer use are %OpenAI, %Amazon ($AMZN), Anthropic, Inflection and %MetaPlatforms ($META).
The seven companies have agreed to a voluntary set of commitments in developing A.I. technology, including:
– Developing a way for consumers to identify A.I.-generated content, such as through watermarks.
– Engaging independent experts to assess the security of their tools before releasing them to the public.
– Sharing information on best practices and attempts to get around safeguards with other industry players, governments, and experts in the field.
– Allowing third parties to look for and report vulnerabilities in their systems.
– Reporting limitations of their technology and guiding on appropriate uses of A.I. tools.
– Prioritizing research on societal risks of A.I., including around discrimination and privacy.
– Developing A.I. with the goal of helping mitigate societal challenges such as climate change and disease.
Safety is a growing concern of A.I. ever since OpenAI released ChatGPT last November.
Tech companies such as Microsoft and Alphabet are spending billions of dollars on developing large language models and generative A.I. tools.
The voluntary commitments that have been announced are part of President Biden’s efforts to ensure A.I. is developed with appropriate safeguards, while not limiting innovation.
Microsoft’s stock has gained 45% this year and is currently trading at $346.87 U.S., which is near an all-time high.
Alphabet’s share price has increased 34% this year to trade at $119.20 U.S. per share.