The U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris is potentially poised to become the Democratic presidential nominee in the November election. As VP, Harris has been particularly outspoken on artificial intelligence (AI). She warned against the “existential” threat of AI and said it could “endanger the very existence of humanity,” in a November 2023 address.
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In a meeting with tech execs like Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Alphabet’s Sundar Pichai, Harris warned that they have a “moral” obligation to guard against AI’s possible dangers. She backed an AI executive order from President Joe Biden that sought stronger protections for consumers, singling out AI-generated scam calls and the impacts of unlabelled AI-generated content.
Prior to joining the Biden administration, as California attorney general, Harris sued eBay over the ecommerce company’s anticompetitive hiring practices surrounding a no-poaching agreement with Intuit. The lawsuit led to a nearly $4 million settlement in 2014.
In a different lawsuit against Houzz, she compelled the startup to hire a chief privacy officer after allegations that the home design app had recorded sales calls without proper notification and consent.
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She has also been at the forefront of curtailing distribution of pornography on social media, particularly “revenge porn,” a practice involving the posting of explicit photos without the subject’s consent. She took credit for a pressure campaign that led to Facebook, Google, Microsoft and others taking measures to remove certain explicit images.
(with inputs from Reuters)
