Fiona Murray is the William Porter (1967) Professor of Entrepreneurship at the MIT School of Management and Vice Chair of the NATO Innovation Fund. A country's economic security--its ability to generate both national security and economic prosperity--is grounded in it having technological capabilities that outpace those of its adversaries and complement those of its allies. Though this is a principle well known throughout history, the move over the last few decades toward globalization and offshoring has made ensuring a nation state's security and economic prosperity increasingly problematic. For the US and its allies in NATO, a particular problem has emerged: a "missing middle" in technology investment. Insufficient capital is allocated toward the maturation of breakthroughs in critical technologies to ensure that they can be deployed at scale.

The Biden Administration unveiled its ambitious next steps in addressing and regulating artificial intelligence development on Monday. Its expansive new executive order seeks to establish further protections for the public as well as improve best practices for federal agencies and their contractors. "The President several months ago directed his team to pull every lever," a senior administration official told reporters on a recent press call. "That's what this order does, bringing the power of the federal government to bear in a wide range of areas to manage AI's risk and harness its benefits ... It stands up for consumers and workers, promotes innovation and competition, advances American leadership around the world and like all executive orders, this one has the force of law." These actions will be introduced over the next year with smaller safety and security changes happening in around 90 days and with more involved reporting and data transparency schemes requiring 9 to 12 months to fully deploy.

Editor's Note: In 2020, an MIT Task Force produced a comprehensive report on the Work of the Future. Since then, the global pandemic has had a significant effect on work and businesses, providing the impetus for The Work of the Future, by the same authors. The book, from which the following excerpt is adapted, will be published by MIT Press on January 25, 2022. A decade ago, powerful mobile phones were still a novelty, driverless cars were never seen on public roadways, and computers did not listen to conversations or respond to spoken questions. The possibility of robots taking jobs seemed far off, save for an assembly line or two.

Economic revitalization minister Daishiro Yamagiwa on Sunday revealed a plan to set up a fund to support the development of cutting-edge technologies crucial for the country's economic security. "The government will fully support private-sector companies' research and development activities for advanced technologies, and their efforts to prepare a business environment for such technologies," he said during a television program. The fund will likely be worth about ¥100 billion. The government will include the planned fund in a package of economic measures to be drawn up after the Oct. 31 Lower House election. The fund is expected to help Japanese companies and universities develop artificial intelligence, quantum and robot technologies, biotechnology and other important tech, and put them into practical use.

Today, the Council on Foreign Relations–sponsored Independent Task Force released The Work Ahead, a report on the American workforce in the 21st century. It does not make for comforting reading. The Work Ahead portrays a country where automation and other technological advances have rendered the economy unrecognizable--employment is no longer linked to economic security, the labor market is brutally divided between a prosperous tech-savvy elite and the struggling tech-illiterate, and the educational system is ill-equipped to prepare workers to succeed. And yet The Work Ahead does not blame technology per se, but rather a government and society that have consistently failed to adjust to economic reality--leaving workers to navigate a rapidly changing world without sufficient support or guidance. It doesn't have to be this way.