The Lowdown
The news comes via FedScoop:
Obama Recently Spoke on AI
Obama, in a well-timed interview with Wired on AI, compared the need for government investment in AI to the government’s moon program: The recommendations were part of an extensive report the White House released Wednesday that looks to outline the federal government’s part in developing rapidly evolving AI technology.” While Obama didn’t get the amount the government currently spends on AI quite right — he said “probably less than a billion,” but unclassified R&D in AI-related tech was 1.1 billion as of 2015 — he is definitely correct that it’s below $80 billion. His claim that government funding is needed makes sense, given this context. After all, public utilities like roads function in a similar manner. No one person can afford the roads they used, but since everyone pays taxes and the government uses them to maintain all the roads, everything’s fine. Under the government’s new program, AI could be the next utility.
