OpenAI backs bills in US Congress on AI and biological weapon threats

Sept 15 : OpenAI is endorsing a series of bipartisan bills before the U.S. Congress that the company says will help to prevent artificial intelligence models from accelerating the threat of biological weapons and synthetic viruses, a company spokesperson said on Tuesday.

• The ChatGPT-maker is endorsing the Web of Biological Data Act, the AI-Ready Bio-Data Standards Act and the Scale Biology Act, the spokesperson said. Politico earlier reported the endorsements.

• OpenAI is also backing a key provision of the FRONTIER Act that requires leading AI companies to embed independent evaluators to assess the safety of their models, the spokesperson said.

• Concerns about advanced AI have escalated, with heads of top U.S. AI labs including OpenAI also calling for a slowdown in the pace of advanced AI development.

• Last week, OpenAI said it ​was pushing for mandatory national AI safety requirements in the United States.