Washington, May 4 (EFE).- The United States will invest 140 million dollars (126.8 million euros at current exchange rates) to establish seven new artificial intelligence (AI) research institutes that will promote responsible innovation and ensure that Advances in technology serve the common good, the White House announced Thursday.
The centers will join the 18 AI research institutes that are already operating in the country, officials from the Joe Biden Administration advanced in a call with journalists.
In this way, the United States will have invested a total of some 500 million dollars (452.8 million euros) to “support responsible innovation that promotes the common good,” explained the director of the Office of Scientific and Technological Policies during the call. of the White House, Arati Prabhakar.
Meeting with Google, Microsoft, OpenAI and Anthropic
The announcement comes the same day that the executives of the technology companies Google, Microsoft, OpenAI and Anthropic are scheduled to come to the White House to discuss with the US Vice President, Kamala Harris, how to mitigate the potential risks of AI.
“We believe that these companies have an important responsibility,” explained Prabhakar, who added that the government’s intention with the meeting on Thursday is to make sure that “there is a conversation” about how they are going to fulfill that responsibility.
In this regard, the White House announced that large AI companies have agreed to undergo a public evaluation of their systems during the DEF CON 31 “hacker” event, to be held in Las Vegas at the beginning of August.
During the convention, thousands of participants will analyze whether these systems are aligned with the AI Bill of Rights proposed by the US Government, which includes principles such as the privacy of user data or protection against discriminatory algorithms.
The Government will also issue new guidelines on the use of AI by government agencies, to ensure that they respect the rights and safety of US citizens.
All this in a context of criticism from some researchers and businessmen about the limitless development of AI by companies like Google or Microsoft.
In early April, thousands of experts from around the world called in an open letter for a pause in training systems more powerful than GPT-4, the latest generative AI model from the OpenAI company, to better understand the risks and potential consequences for humanity of this type of technology.