Agencies Should Consider the Pros and Cons of Artificial Intelligence

U.S. Chief Technology Officer Michael Kratsios and Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette shed a little light on how the Energy Department and Trump administration are thinking about ethics, regulatory approaches, and broader societal implications as they push the rollout of artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies. During a fireside chat in Pittsburgh Tuesday, Brouillette reflected on similar-but-as-serious considerations previously made when the agency was developing nuclear technologies many years ago. He noted that now, when focusing on ethics, his mind tends to hone in on negative aspects and "bad results" that could arise with tech adoption. "I haven't thought this through with great depth, but there seems to be some positive aspects of AI, too, on the ethics front that we need to explore," Brouillette told the chat's moderator Carnegie Mellon University Vice President of Research Michael McQuade. "And perhaps through that process we can speed the adoption of some of these technologies," he said, adding that he'd like to give it all more thought.