President Joe Biden is very concerned about the impact artificial intelligence is going to have on America and the world – and it’s partly due to his penchant for the films of Tom Cruise.
Biden signed a new executive order on Monday (October 30), which will address concerns about safety and security, as well as assigning tasks to federal agencies to oversee the development of the technology.
“We can’t move at a normal government pace,” White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients quoted Mr Biden as telling his staff, according to the Associated Press. “We have to move as fast, if not faster than the technology itself.”
Now, it’s been revealed that Biden has taken action after being confronted with AI representations of himself and after watching Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One.
Getty/Paramount
Deputy White House chief of staff Bruce Reed told AP that Biden had been “impressed and alarmed” after seeing “fake AI images of himself”.
“If he hadn’t already been concerned about what could go wrong with AI before that movie, he saw plenty more to worry about,” Reed said.
Reed watched the film with Biden at Camp David. The film focuses on Cruise’s character Ethan Hunt who goes up against an AI villain known as the Entity, which is capable of hijacking submarines and launching hugely destructive attacks.
Reed also expanded on the type of AI images Biden had seen.
“He saw fake AI images of himself, of his dog,” he said. “He saw how it can make bad poetry. And he’s seen and heard the incredible and terrifying technology of voice cloning, which can take three seconds of your voice and turn it into an entire fake conversation.”
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