Commentary: Why the U.S. Could Fall Behind in the Global AI Race

The country that wins the global race for dominance in artificial intelligence stands to capture enormous economic benefits, including potentially doubling its economic growth rates by 2035. Unfortunately, the United States is getting bad advice about how to compete. Over the past year, Canada, China, France, India, Japan, and the United Kingdom have all launched major government-backed initiatives to compete in AI. While the Trump administration has begun to focus on how to advance the technology, it has not developed a cohesive national strategy to match that of other countries. This has allowed the conversation about how policymakers in the United States should support AI to be dominated by proposals from advocates primarily concerned with staving off potential harms of AI by imposing restrictive regulations on the technology, rather than supporting its growth.