President Joe Biden signed an executive order designed to create the first real US regulations and suggestions about artificial intelligence on October 30. The order came after months of meetings about AI tech, though the White House also confirmed that, strangely, the new Mission: Impossible film played a part in its signing.
If you’ve not been paying attention for the last year, you might have missed that AI-powered tools and software have become the hot thing as tech companies run like rats from the sinking ships that are NFTs and the metaverse. While it’s the shiny new toy all tech bros worship, AI also has a lot of controversy surrounding it. Artists and authors are rightfully upset that AI scrapes their work to create new images or text without paying them a dime. The tech has also been used to create silly content that likely upsets big companies like Nintendo and also has led to some really disturbing stuff featuring dead kids talking about actual murders. Overall, not great! And while it’s taken far too long, the US government finally seems interested in trying to control this nightmare tech. Thanks to… Tom Cruise?
As reported by the Associated Press, after signing the first comprehensive executive order governing AI tech on October 30, the White House talked about how this came to be, mentioning long meetings with advisors and experts. But also, apparently, Joe Biden watched Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning: Part One at Camp David and became more worried than ever.
In the film, a powerful and dangerous sentient AI known as “The Entity” goes rogue and destroys a submarine, killing its crew in the process. The rest of the movie features the AI enemy using cloned voices and other tech trickery to cause all sorts of problems for our heroes.
“If he hadn’t already been concerned about what could go wrong with AI before that movie, he saw plenty more to worry about,” said White House Chief of Staff Bruce Reed, who reportedly watched the action movie with the president.
Of course, it wasn’t just Mission: Impossible that convinced Biden to do something about AI, with Reed telling the AP that the president was “impressed and alarmed” after being shown fake videos and images of himself and his dog. But like any good boomer, it took a silly movie about scary terrorists to help Biden understand what was going on. Whatever it takes to slow down and control AI technology, I guess.
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