President Biden says AI “could be” dangerous and urged tech companies to make sure their products are safe before making them public.

At a meeting with the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology last week, Biden said social media proves that new technologies can be harmful without safeguards in place.

“We see the impact on the mental health and self-images and feelings and hopelessness, especially among young people,” Biden said.

However, Biden also believes AI can “help deal with some very difficult challenges like disease and climate change” as long as the U.S. also addresses “potential risks to our society, to our economy, to our national security.”

Biden urged Congress to pass bipartisan privacy legislation that would impose strict limits on personal data that tech companies collect, ban ads targeted at children, and also require companies to put health and safety first in the products that they build.

Biden’s call for reigning in big tech comes as major tech companies are advising him on AI. Representatives from companies including Google, Microsoft, Nvidia and AWS are on the National Artificial Intelligence Advisory Committee, which was formed a year ago.

Last October, the White House published the AI Bill of Rights, which set forth principles that should be adopted to avoid civil rights violations when developing AI.

Related:White House Publishes AI Bill of Rights

At this last week's meeting, Biden said these rights would “ensure the important protections are built into the AI systems from the start” so developers would not have to go back and redo their work.

This article first appeared in IoT World Today's sister publication AI Business.