The Biden administration is taking a raft of AI-related actions as global leaders and top tech executives travel to Britain’s Bletchley Park for a summit on safety concerns about artificial intelligence, with a particular focus on catastrophic scenarios of ways AI could be abused. As others — especially the European Union — race to regulate artificial intelligence, the Biden administration is attempting to signal that the United States leads not only in industry innovation, but also policy.
The speech is expected to provide counterprogramming to the summit’s focus on doomsday scenarios, including the ways AI could be used to deploy bioweapons. The vice president is expected to urge the international community to address the full spectrum of AI risks, including problems already happening such as discrimination, according to a White House official.
Harris’s speech will build on the Biden administration’s Monday executive order, which invoked broad emergency powers to put new guardrails on the companies building the most advanced artificial intelligence. The order marked the most significant action the U.S. federal government has taken so far to rein in the use of artificial intelligence, amid concerns that it could supercharge disinformation, exacerbate discrimination and infringe on privacy.
Yet there are limits to how much the Biden administration can accomplish without an act of Congress, and other legislatures around the world are moving more quickly than the United States in developing AI bills. The European Union is expected to reach a deal by the end of the year on legislation known as the E.U. AI Act.
