Last week, a surprising mishap occurred when a ByteDance analyst was accidentally added to a group chat for American artificial intelligence safety experts. The irony is hard to miss, considering ByteDance is the parent company of TikTok, which has been making headlines lately.
The Energy and Commerce Committee recently made a bold move by unanimously voting 50-0 in favor of a measure involving TikTok and ByteDance. Subsequently, the House overwhelmingly passed the bill on to the Senate, signaling potential changes ahead.
The primary objective is for ByteDance to sell its stake in TikTok or face a ban in the US. If all goes according to plan and the bill gets approval from both chambers and President Joe Biden, ByteDance will have 165 days to divest from TikTok. Failure to comply could result in TikTok being removed from major US app stores like Apple’s, Google’s, and Samsung’s.
In an amusing twist of events reported by Reuters, a ByteDance researcher found themselves inadvertently added to a Slack channel intended for discussions among members of NIST’s U.S. Artificial Intelligence Safety Institute Consortium. This mistake was quickly rectified once it was realized that the individual was from ByteDance, prompting their removal due to ethical concerns.
Despite residing in California as per their LinkedIn profile, the individual has not responded to inquiries, while ByteDance has chosen to remain silent on the matter. This incident raised eyebrows within the consortium, given TikTok’s controversial position in ongoing conversations about potential risks related to Chinese surveillance and influence.
It goes without saying that this unexpected inclusion of a ByteDance representative sparked quite a stir among AI safety specialists in the group chat. Stay tuned for more updates as this story continues to unfold.
