Here's how The White House wants the U.S. to approach AI R&D

Since 1956, when computer science researchers gathered in the small town of Hanover, N.H. at Dartmouth College to talk about the field's nascent investigations into artificial intelligence, both government and industry in the U.S. have grappled with how to structure a systematic approach to research and development in the newly important field. From the government's perspective, this is increasingly important. With both federal research institutions and private companies pursuing artificial intelligence breakthroughs at breakneck speed, the federal government is frankly having a bit of an existential crisis about its role in research efforts and the priorities it has for what AI research should look like. To wit, in 2015 government spending on unclassified research and development in AI-related technologies was around 1.1 billion, according to one of the twin reports released today. But in the last five years alone, mergers and acquisitions among private companies vying for dominance in the AI market have far outstripped that figure, according to data from CB Insights.