Members of Congress, the U.S. military, and prominent technologists have raised the alarm that the U.S. is at risk of losing an Artificial Intelligence (AI) arms race. China already has leveraged strategic investment and planning, access to massive data, and suspect business practices to surpass the U.S. in some aspects of AI implementation. There are worries that this competition could extend to the military sphere with serious consequences for U.S. national security. During the prior Cold War arms race era, U.S. policymakers and the military expressed consternation about a so-called "missile gap" with the USSR that potentially gave the Soviets military superiority. Echoes of gap anxiety continue today.

The role of data that fuels artificial intelligence raises some ethical questions. Who owns the data collected from healthcare devices or the information gathered from a Fitbit? The technology industry is now trying to resolve the principles of collecting data and its democratization. "There's a real big gap, and I think probably part of what the industry has to do is not just build great new technologies, but sort of start to fill that gap with data education and literacy," said Dawn Nafus, Ph.D. (pictured), anthropologist at Intel and author of "Self-Tracking" and "Quantified: Biosensing Technologies in Everyday Life." While at the AI Intel Lounge in Austin, TX, during the South by Southwest event in Austin, TX, Nafus spoke with John Furrier (@furrier), host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media's mobile live streaming studio, about establishing ethical guidelines within the parameters of AI used with personal data.