Tech company bosses instructed to protect public from AI risks

COLOMBO (News 1st): Executives, namely Sundar Pichai of Google, Satya Nadella of Microsoft, and OpenAI's Sam Altmann were summoned to the White House to be briefed that they have a moral duty to protect the public from the risks and dangers of AI.

This was followed by an assurance by the White House that the Tech sector will be further regulated to safeguard the public. The briefing follows the recent surge in enthusiasm for bots subsequent to the launch of ChatGPT by OpenAI (which can summarise information within seconds, debug computer code, write presentations, and even poetry, that sound plausibly as if they might have been human-generated.) The launch of AI generative software like ChatGPT has sparked controversial debate in society over the role of AI and its risks. According to US Vice President Kamala Harris, generative technology has the potential to endanger safety, privacy, and civil rights, although it also had the potential to improve lives.

The White House has announced a $140m investment from the National Science Foundation to launch seven new AI research institutes to curb the dangers posed by generative AI. While technology will perpetually develop and be enhanced, the need to regulate the tech sector has grabbed the attention of the US government and tech giants- earlier this week AI pioneer Geoffrey Hinton, quit his job at Google, calling the escalating development of AI "scary", furthermore, both Elon Musk and Apple founder Steve Wozniak, called for a pause to the development of technology.