Harris to meet with CEOs of four AI companies

Vice President Harris will meet with the CEOs of four American companies working on artificial intelligence (AI) innovation on Thursday, as part of the Biden administration’s efforts to increase engagement on AI issues.

In the meeting with CEOs from Alphabet, Anthropic, Microsoft, and OpenAI, Harris plans to “emphasize the importance of driving responsible, trustworthy, and ethical innovation with safeguards that mitigate risks and potential harms,” according to a White House official.

Arati Prabhakar, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, sent a letter to Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI; Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic; Satya Nadella, chairman and CEO of Microsoft; and Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet, inviting them to the meeting on Thursday.

“We aim to have a frank discussion of the risks we each see in current and near-term AI development, actions to mitigate those risks, and other ways we can work together to ensure the American people benefit from advances in AI while being protected from its harms,” the letter read.

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, President Biden’s chief of staff Jeff Zients, national security adviser Jake Sullivan, and director of the National Economic Council Lael Brainard, will be in the meeting with Harris.

The meeting is intended to build on the administration’s efforts in creating a blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights, which it recently released to mitigate the harms of automated systems.

“President Biden has been clear that in order to seize the opportunities AI presents, we must first mitigate its risks. This means both supporting responsible innovation that improves lives and serves the public good, and also ensuring appropriate safeguards to protect the American people, our society, national security, and economy,” the official said in a statement.