Apple has signed onto the Biden administration’s voluntary initiative on the safe development of artificial intelligence (AI), joining 15 other companies that have signed on since last year.
“Today, the Administration is announcing that Apple has signed onto the voluntary commitment, further strengthening these efforts as a cornerstone of responsible AI innovation,” the White House said in a fact sheet on Friday (July 26).
The White House first announced these voluntary initiatives in July 2023, saying they aimed to support progress toward safe, secure, and transparent development of AI technologies.
At the time, seven companies participated: Amazon, Anthropic, Google, Inflection, Meta, Microsoft, and OpenAI.
According to the White House, the pledge includes a series of steps aimed at better understanding the risks and ethical implications of emerging technologies, increasing transparency and limiting their potential for misuse.
“Companies developing these emerging technologies have a responsibility to ensure the safety of their products,” the White House said in a July 21, 2023 fact sheet announcing the voluntary initiative. “To realize the full potential of AI, the Biden-Harris Administration is encouraging the AI industry to be held to the highest standards to ensure innovation does not come at the expense of the rights and safety of Americans.”
In a September 12, 2023 fact sheet, the White House announced that eight additional companies had signed onto the voluntary initiative in September: Adobe, Cohere, IBM, Nvidia, Palantir, Salesforce, Scale AI, and Stability.
After the initial voluntary initiative was announced in July 2023, observers noted that many of the agreed-upon practices were already in place at many AI companies and did not represent new regulation, PYMNTS reported at the time.
The approach to self-regulation has also drawn criticism from consumer groups, including the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC).
“EPIC commends the Biden Administration for using its authority to implement safeguards for the use of artificial intelligence, but we agree that voluntary efforts alone are not enough when it comes to big tech companies,” EPIC Deputy Director Caitriona Fitzgerald said in a statement on July 21, 2023. “Congress and federal regulators must put in place meaningful, enforceable guardrails to ensure that uses of AI are fair and transparent, and that individual privacy and civil rights are protected.”
