First White House AI workshop focuses on how machines (plus humans) will change government

Intelligent machines won't be ruling the world anytime soon – but what happens when they turn you down for a loan, crash your car or discriminate against you because of your race or gender? On one level, the answer is simple: "It depends," says Bryant Walker Smith, a law professor at the University of South Carolina who specializes in the issues raised by autonomous vehicles. But that opens the door to a far more complex legal debate. "It seems to me that'My Robot Did It' is not an excuse," says Oren Etzioni, CEO of the Seattle-based Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence, or AI2. The rapidly rising challenges that face America's legal system and policymakers were the focus of today's first-ever White House public workshop on artificial intelligence, presented at the University of Washington School of Law. For a full afternoon, Smith, Etzioni and other experts debated the options in an auditorium that was filled to capacity.