U.S. Commerce Secretary on AI: New opportunities carry risk

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U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo joins Yahoo Finance to discuss AI opportunities, cyber security, innovation, and the outlook for AI.

Raimondo and top Biden officials including Vice President Kamala Harris are set to sit down with leading tech executives Thursday to discuss the future of AI and Washington’s role in it.

Raimondo questioned, "What's the right balance? How do we move forward ... in a way that is safe and protects our privacy, protects us from cyber risk, protects us from deep fakes and misinformation?"

In addition to AI, Raimondo sat down with Yahoo Finance to comment on the debt ceiling debate, the threat from China, the CHIPS Act, and more.

Video Transcript

[MUSIC PLAYING]

GINA RAIMONDO: AI is exciting. It brings about incredible opportunities for advances in business, health care, education. However, with those opportunities come substantial risk, risk that we may not even understand fully today.

What's the right balance? How do we move forward, innovating at pace, leading the world in AI, not slowing down, because we don't want to get behind the rest of the world, but, but, but, in a way that is safe and protects us, protects our privacy, protects us from cyber risks, protects us from deepfakes and misinformation? And so this is complicated, probably the most complicated tech policy discussion, possibly, that we've ever had. And the administration wants to be very serious and thoughtful about it.

There is no question that AI will change the way we work. And in many ways, that will be a good thing. It will make our jobs easier. It'll make us more effective. It'll make us more productive. But it's also true that it's a brand-new technology that's very powerful, and that's why we have to be thoughtful-- to make sure people don't get hurt.

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