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Even the most powerful person in the world is impressed by ChatGPT.
For his first prompt to the generative artificial intelligence chatbot, President Joe Biden asked ChatGPT about a lawsuit between New Jersey and his home state of Delaware because he had just given New Jersey-native Bruce Springsteen the National Medal of Arts, Arati Prabhakar, director of the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and assistant to the president for science and technology, told Wired. Biden and Prabhakar then asked the chatbot to explain the lawsuit to a first grader.
“Immediately these words start coming out like, “OK, kiddo, let me tell you, if you had a fight with someone …,” Prabhakar said.
The two then asked ChatGPT to write a legal brief for a Supreme Court case, which ended up looking like a “very formal legal analysis,” Prabhakar said.
The president was also shown an AI-image generator demonstration of his dog, Commander, sitting behind the Oval Office’s Resolute desk, Prabhakar said. She told Wired that working with the president on his understanding of AI technology was “some of the most fun I’ve gotten on the job.”
Although Biden was aware of the technology before the demonstrations, Prabhakar said they “gave him direct experience” and that his first reaction was, “Wow, I can’t believe it could do that.”
Prabhakar is one of the 22 inaugural members of the government’s new Artificial Intelligence Safety and Security Board, which also includes OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman and Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang. The board will advise the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on protecting the economy, healthcare, and other industries from threats posed by AI. It will work with the department to form recommendations for preventing potential harm from using AI in critical infrastructure, including the power grid and transportation.
The board was established by the Biden administration’s executive order on safe, secure, and trustworthy AI.