President's Most Senior Technology Advisor Says the White House is Quietly Pursuing an Aggressive AI Plan (technologyreview.com)

Speaking at a conference held at MIT, Donald Trump's chief technology advisor, Michael Kratsios, said this week that the U.S. government would release any data that might help fuel AI research in the United States, although he didn't specify immediately what kind of data would be released or who would be eligible to receive the information. From a report: Kratsios, who is deputy assistant to the president and deputy US chief technology officer, said the government is looking for ways to open up federal data to AI researchers. "Anything that we can do to unlock government data, we're committed to," Kratsios told MIT Technology Review. "We'd love to hear from any academic that has any insights." Data has been a key factor behind recent advances in artificial intelligence. For example, better voice recognition and image processing have been contingent on the availability of huge quantities of training data. The government has access to large amounts of data, and it's possible that it could be used to train innovative algorithms to do new things. "Anything we can do to figure that out, we will work very hard on," Kratsios added.

The Trump administration has faced criticism for a more laissez-faire approach to artificial intelligence than many other countries have taken. Kratsios argued that the White House is quietly pushing an aggressive policy, pointing to examples of research projects that have received federal funding. When asked about the president's interest in artificial intelligence, Kratsios said, "The White House has prioritized AI, and he obviously runs the White House."

Comments

Re:He's competent at all the wrong things

[Shotgun]

He is pretty competent at doing what is best for himself, and very competent at bullying and even destroying his opponents. Which is already extremely chilling, given the craven inaction of congress to hold him accountable or act as an effective check and balance to his numerous and ever-growing abuses of power. Which makes his administration's embrace of AI, particularly in the context of the surveillance state we already have, absolutely terrifying.

At least he isn't screaming "racist" every time someone disagrees with him. And he has not yet turned the DOJ, FBI, IRS and CIA into weapons to use against his political enemies. But, heh, you got some judges from the 9th circuit to block most of his moves, so you've got that. I mean, they all get overturned by the Supreme Court, but at least you can block him for a while. Right?