AI for good: Is it for real?

Through the half century history of AI, the direction of research and funding has been dominated by the military and intelligence. Over the last decade that has shifted with the now huge commercial investment by Amazon, Google, Alibaba, Tencent and others. But through this time there has been very little serious interest, and almost no funding, for AI as a tool for empowering citizens or consumers, and relatively little for AI for public benefit. This may now be changing. A good reason for wanting to change things is the ambivalent state of public attitudes.