Companies including IBM Corp., Palantir Technologies Inc., Adobe Inc. and Salesforce Inc. will join President Joe Biden’s voluntary commitments on artificial intelligence as the White House seeks to expand its efforts to shape the new technology without waiting on Congress.
(Bloomberg) — Companies including IBM Corp., Palantir Technologies Inc., Adobe Inc. and Salesforce Inc. will join President Joe Biden’s voluntary commitments on artificial intelligence as the White House seeks to expand its efforts to shape the new technology without waiting on Congress.
The announcement, set for Sept. 12, will build on a July agreement with tech firms like Microsoft Corp. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google aimed at putting trust and safety at the center of the most powerful AI systems, according to a person familiar with the plans.
This approach is especially important for the so-called frontier models that the companies have agreed to allow third parties to probe for vulnerabilities, a process known as red-teaming.
Scale AI Inc., Stability AI Ltd. and Cohere Inc. will also adopt the voluntary commitments, according to the person, who asked not to be named to discuss an meeting that hasn’t been announced.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Read More: AI Leaders Set to Accede to White House Demand for Safeguards
The White House’s focus on AI shows both the importance of a technology that promises to reshape the global economy and the limits of what the administration can do without congressional action. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has described AI as “world-altering” and pledged to pursue legislation that strengthens safety while also encouraging US innovation.
To this end, Schumer is hosting a series of “AI insight forums,” the first of which will be Sept. 13. The day-long session, to be held behind closed doors in a Senate office building, will include Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, Google’s Sundar Pichai, Meta Platforms Inc.’s Mark Zuckerberg and Tesla Inc.’s Elon Musk.
Read More: Schumer’s AI Supergroup Pushing the Tech to Top of Senate Agenda
The Biden administration is also planning to share the voluntary commitments with other countries in upcoming discussions about AI at the United Nations General Assembly and a UK AI summit in November, according to another person familiar with the strategy.
The aim is to get enough countries to encourage their companies to also adopt the standards, allowing the US to set the global default for AI regulation without waiting on Congress to pass legislation, the person said.
–With assistance from Michelle Jamrisko.
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