White House task force to update AI plan to maintain industry lead over China

The White House task force on artificial intelligence is planning to update the AI research and development plan launched two years ago under President Barack Obama in the spring of 2019, Federal News Network reports.

White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) Assistant Director for Artificial Intelligence Lynne Parker said at a recent event at the Center for Data Innovation in Washington that the task force has found the 2016 strategy requires some adjustments.

“Certainly, the fact that industry these days is investing significantly in AI R&D is something we can’t ignore, so we want to make sure that our federal investments are in areas where we can ensure that we are looking at challenges that are not going to be solved by the open market,” Parker said.

She notes that the government wants to ensure it is leveraging federal resources to accelerate advances and support U.S. national leadership in the field. China has ambitions to lead the world in AI technology development, and has made substantial investments, including creating an open-source AI development platform, to support those ambitions.

The committee also wants to reduce duplication in research. OSTP sought public input with a request for information in September, which was largely supportive of the existing plan.

Also in September, DARPA launched the $2 billion AI Next program to develop “third wave” AI solutions, including “explainable AI,” according to Federal News Network. It will also attempt to cut down the massive volumes of training data necessary for AI systems.

“The facial recognition techniques that are very successful today require millions and millions of examples and training,” Parker said. “So it’s a cutting-edge research challenge right now to create AI that can learn in other ways.”

Other areas the AI task force is focussing on include adversarial AI, which has been used by researchers to design effective biometric technology blocking techniques.

Article Topics

artificial intelligence  |  biometrics  |  research and development  |  U.S. Government