Our A.I. Policy Is Stuck in the Past

Ed Felten, the deputy U.S. chief technology officer for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, says humans have two major responsibilities when it comes to the development and advancement of artificial intelligence. The first, he says, is "to make the benefits of A.I. a reality." The second: "to address the risks of A.I." Felten was speaking to a roomful of people at New York University's Skirball Center for the Performing Arts at AI Now -- a summer lecture series co-sponsored by the White House that sought to examine and discuss key issues related to the future of A.I. technology. A.I. is at a crossroads, AI Now co-chairs Kate Crawford (a researcher at Microsoft Research) and Meredith Whittaker (the founder and lead for Google Open Research), pointed out. Private and public sectors need to work together to create some sort of feasible A.I. policy.