Trump administration updates AI strategy, with emphasis on transparency, data integrity

In its update to its National Artificial Intelligence Research And Development Strategic Plan, the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy has set new objectives for federal AI research. WHY IT MATTERS The strategic plan boils down to eight strategies for how government can better enable development of safe and effective AI and machine learning technologies for healthcare and other industries. The 50-page document takes special interest in ensuring that data used to power AI is trustworthy and that the algorithms used to process it are understandable – not least in healthcare. "A key research challenge is increasing the'explainability' or ''transparency' of AI," according to the report. "Many algorithms, including those based on deep learning, are opaque to users, with few existing mechanisms for explaining their results. This is especially problematic for domains such as healthcare, where doctors need explanations to justify a particular diagnosis or a course of treatment. AI techniques such as decision-tree induction provide built-in explanations but are generally less accurate. Thus, researchers must develop systems that are transparent, and intrinsically capable of explaining the reasons for their results to users."