The Globe and Mail reports in its Saturday edition that seven leading AI companies have agreed to voluntary safeguards on the technology's development, the White House announced Friday, pledging to manage the risks of the new tools even as they compete over its potential. A New York Times item inside The Globe says that the seven -- Amazon, Anthropic, Google, Inflection, Meta, Microsoft and OpenAI -- formally announced their commitment to new standards in the areas of artificial-intelligence safety, security and trust at a meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday. The announcement comes as the companies are racing to outdo each other with versions of AI that offer powerful new ways to create text, photos, music and video without human input. The technological leaps have prompted fears about the spread of disinformation and dire warnings of a "risk of extinction" as self-aware computers evolve. The voluntary safeguards are only an early, tentative step as Washington and governments across the world rush to put in place legal and regulatory frameworks for the development of AI. The agreements include testing products for security risks and using watermarks to make sure consumers can spot AI-generated material.