The White House Considers Artificial Intelligence an Important Policy Issue

The White House is going to spend the summer researching how the government should deal with artificial intelligence. When you consider that we've got drones flying everywhere, robots automating jobs out of existence, and self-driving cars right around the corner, it's about time. The administration is pitching its new AI research program as an "interagency working group" that will "learn more about the benefits and risks of artificial intelligence," which is a welcome move--researchers in the field have been calling for a "Federal Robotics Commission" for the last couple years, and this at least looks like a small step toward that future. With companies like Google, Uber, and Tesla getting close to wanting to put self-driving cars on the road, drone companies hoping to begin to automate the devices, and AI-driven software taking jobs left and right, it's clear AI is going to have a significant impact on our society. AI is going to continue to make everything a lot more seamless, which is great, but we're also probably going to have to start thinking about things like a basic income for people whose jobs are automated away.