White House Creates Select Committee to Advise Trump on Interagency AI Efforts
The White House established a select committee on artificial intelligence under the National Science and Technology Council to advise the president on interagency AI efforts, White House Deputy Chief Technology Officer Michael Kratsios told about 40 industry representatives, 25 government officials and 10 academics Thursday (see 1805090048). The “most senior” R&D officials will be members, he said. The panel will consider federal partnerships with industry and academia and leverage federal data to promote the national AI ecosystem, he said.
Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Uber, Intel, Oracle, IBM and Hewlett Packard were among companies joining officials from the executive office and at least eight departments and agencies, including Transportation, the Director of National Intelligence, Defense and Energy. Schools attending the event, closed to media, included Stanford University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Carnegie Mellon University. “We are removing barriers to innovation wherever and whenever we can,” Kratsios said in prepared remarks.
Intel CEO Brian Krzanich, who attended, predicted AI will be “more transformative than the PC and the Internet.” China, India, Japan, France and the EU are all “crafting bold plans” and the U.S. risks falling behind without coherent AI strategy. He lamented the U.S. disbanding its AI taskforce in 2016 and abandoning recommendations for federal AI strategy. He said those principles can be a starting point: “This is not a call for a swarm of new laws and regulations. Rather, a U.S. national strategy can provide the structure for researchers and industry to follow as they develop artificial intelligence.” AI is "too big for one company, or one country, to realize alone," the CEO wrote. “When the regulatory environment is known and understood, businesses and government researchers can maximize their impact by pursuing the same goals,” he said: It's important to address AI’s impact on privacy, cybersecurity, ethics and potential employment.
CTA President Gary Shapiro, who didn't attend, said the “future of U.S. leadership and innovation depends on a thoughtful and strategic policy approach to promote and enhance AI development.” Amazon tweeted: “The power of AI and machine learning is helping us to solve challenging problems on behalf of our customers and beyond, and we look forward to the conversation.”
The select committee is to be chaired by members of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, the National Science Foundation and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Membership will include the undersecretary of commerce for standards and technology, undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, undersecretary of energy for science, the NSF director and the DARPA and DNI's Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity director. Officials from the National Security Council, the Office of the Federal Chief Information Officer, the Office of Management and Budget and OSTP will fill the remaining seats.
Kratsios cited statistics showing the U.S. has the most AI startups, nearly double the closest competitor. The U.S. has the top eight universities for AI. The administration is committed to maintaining U.S. leadership in AI, he said, citing President Donald Trump’s 2017 executive order promoting creation of industry-recognized apprenticeship programs and offering retraining through Pell grants.