Washington: US Vice President JD Vance warned against shielding artificial intelligence companies from liability for their products, arguing that developers of powerful frontier models must take responsibility for safety rather than turn to Washington for sweeping new regulations.
Vance warns AI Vance also cautioned against “cartel-like activity” among the biggest AI companies and said the administration wanted strong competition as the technology develops.
Following a White House meeting with technology industry leaders, Vance said President Donald Trump wanted companies to take AI risks seriously without automatically creating a large new regulatory structure.
“What I think would be a huge mistake is to give, for example, Section 230 protections to some of the new technology companies,” Vance said.
“That actually shields them from liability rather than making them more responsible,” he said.
Vance said it would also be a “huge mistake” to allow major developers to operate collectively in ways that weakened competition.
“We don’t want the four or five biggest model companies, and some of these guys, these companies, by the way, are run by very smart, earnest people, very good people, I have nothing against these companies, but I want those companies to compete against one another, not to join in a sort of unified cartel against the American consumer,” he said.
The Vice President said the administration was seeking a balance between innovation and safety as increasingly powerful AI — now being called “super intelligence” by the administration — becomes more widely deployed.
Vance rejected alarmist predictions that advanced AI would inevitably escape human control.
“I think a lot of Americans, when they think of AI or SI, they think, ‘Oh my God, this is Skynet,’ right? They think the terminators are gonna come and take over everything and, you know, take over our nuclear weapons and have the robots running around killing people. And that’s just not gonna happen,” he said.
But Vance acknowledged risks if companies fail to exercise sufficient care in developing their systems.
“If you’re building a terrible, terrible thing, then stop and build something good,” he said. “Don’t come to the government and regulate.”
He said existing product liability principles could provide an important foundation for dealing with AI-related harms.
Vance pointed to the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice as existing agencies capable of responding when products violate consumer rights, fail to work as advertised or cause harm.
He expressed reservations about creating an AI equivalent of agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration or Federal Aviation Administration.
“Most bureaucrats just know way less about this, uh, than- than, uh, the people who are actually building these products,” he said.
Vance said regulations could improve safety while remaining compatible with innovation, but only if they were carefully designed.
“I don’t think anybody regulates well in the middle of a panic. COVID should have taught us that,” he said.
He also identified cyber capabilities as one of the clearest risks emerging from frontier models, saying some systems had a “remarkable ability” to help hackers penetrate computer systems.
“The best weapon against cyber offense is good cyber defense,” Vance said.
He argued that competition and antitrust enforcement could help prevent a small group of dominant companies from controlling the emerging industry while leaving room for smaller companies and new entrants.
“You have to make it possible for a young upstart to, to actually enter these industries, to compete in these industries,” he said.
(IANS)
