AI companies agree to voluntary safeguards, Biden announces
CBSN
Washington — Seven companies at the forefront of developing rapid advancements in artificial intelligence have agreed to voluntary safeguards for users, the White House announced Friday.
Amazon, Anthropic, Google, Inflection, Meta, Microsoft and OpenAI have all agreed to "voluntary commitments for responsible innovation" that underscore three fundamental principles of "safety, security and trust," President Biden announced after meeting with top executives from the companies.
The emergence of widely available AI tools capable of crafting unique text and images based on user prompts, like OpenAI's ChatGPT chatbot and DALL-E 2 image generator, has sparked an arms race among major tech firms seeking to incorporate similar technology in their own products and advance research in the still-emerging field. Observers say AI has the potential to upend entire industries, but the powerful nature of the technology has also sparked calls from lawmakers — and some of the firms themselves — for more federal regulation to set the rules of the road.

The peace and tranquility of Muir Woods, just north of San Francisco – home to 500+ acres of old-growth redwoods – make it just about the last place you'd expect to find a fight brewing. "The fact that they're taking down whole groups of signs about climate change and our nation's history is disappointing, and embarrassing," said retired U.S. Park Ranger Lucy Scott In:

We share our planet with maybe 10 million species of plants, animals, birds, fish, fungi and bugs. And to help identify them, millions of people are using a free phone app. "Currently we have about six million people using the platform every month," said Scott Loarie, the executive director of iNaturalist, a nonprofit.

At ski resorts across the West this winter, viral images showed chairlifts idling over brown terrain in places normally renowned for their frosty appeal. Iconic mountain towns like Aspen, Colorado, and Park City, Utah, were seen with shockingly bare slopes, as the region endured a historic snow drought that experts warn could bring water shortages and wildfires in the months ahead. In:










