White House studying benefits and risks of AI

The White House will host a series of public meetings to help figure out the benefits and risks of recent and anticipated breakthroughs in artificial intelligence -- and will study how it could help government services. Four workshops will be held across the country in the next two months, co-hosted by local universities and non-profits, examining the various ways AI is already intruding into public life, according to the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy. The announcement comes in the wake of comments from the government's top blue-sky researcher on the limits of AI -- and of recent public commentary about the apocalyptic threat of learning machines. "Like any transformative technology, artificial intelligence carries some risk and presents complex policy challenges along several dimensions, from jobs and the economy to safety and regulatory questions," writes U.S. Deputy CTO Ed Felten in a blog post. "There are tremendous opportunities and an array of considerations across the Federal Government in privacy, security, regulation, law, and research and development to be taken into account when effectively integrating this technology into both government and private-sector activities."