Get ready because artificial intelligence is on the White House’s radar, and it’s taking the field seriously.
The White House this week announced the new National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) Subcommittee on Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence will meet for the first time next week, and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy will cohost four workshops to create a dialogue around the positives and negatives of artificial intelligence and machine learning.
“Like any transformative technology … artificial intelligence carries some risk and presents complex policy challenges along several dimensions, from jobs and the economy to safety and regulatory questions,” Deputy U.S. Chief Technology Officer Ed Felten wrote. “For example, A.I. will create new jobs while phasing out some old ones—magnifying the importance of programs like TechHire that are preparing our workforce with the skills to get ahead in today’s economy, and tomorrow’s.”
The following workshops will be held over the next few months:
- Legal and Governance Implications of Artificial Intelligence, held in Seattle on May, 24
- Artificial Intelligence for Social Good, held in Washington, D.C., on June 7
- Safety and Control for Artificial Intelligence, held in Pittsburgh on June 28
- The Social and Economic Implications of Artificial Intelligence Technologies in the Near-Term, held in New York City on July 7
According to Felten, the new subcommittee is meant to monitor advances and milestones in the field, including in the federal realm, the private sector, and internationally.
“Between now and the end of the administration, the NSTC group will work to increase the use of A.I. and machine learning to improve the delivery of government services,” Felten continued. “Such efforts may include empowering federal departments and agencies to run pilot projects evaluating new A.I.-driven approaches and government investment in research on how to use A.I. to make government services more effective.”
Already, the White House plans to rely on A.I. for the Precision Medicine Initiative and the Cancer Moonshot project. Those projects will utilize the technology to discern patterns in medical data, help doctors diagnose diseases, and suggest treatments.
Speakers at the upcoming events include Prof. Ryan Calo (University of Washington School of Law), and Kate Crawford (Microsoft Research), among many others from institutions such as Carnegie Mellon University, Johns Hopkins University, University of Southern California, and the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence.
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