President Donald Trump's new "American A.I. Initiative" is designed to place the United States at the forefront of artificial intelligence research. But the executive order itself is reportedly pretty broad about how the nation can actually achieve global A.I. superiority. According to Axios and other sources, there's no new federal funding allocated for artificial-intelligence and machine learning projects; instead, government agencies are asked to shift existing funding to A.I. research, as well as open up datasets, models, and other resources to researchers and other tech pros--potentially fueling new inventions. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is also tasked with creating standards for safe and reliable A.I. systems. Government agencies will introduce fellowships and skills programs that will retrain workers to deal with an A.I.-centric future.

Labor economists have been pointing out the employment consequences of new digital technologies for several years, and the White House report dutifully lays out many of those findings. It is an attempt to elevate into Washington political circles the discussion of how automation and, increasingly, AI are affecting employment, and why it's time to finally adopt educational and labor policies to address the plight of workers either displaced by technology or ill suited for the new opportunities. Joel Mokyr, a leading economic historian at Northwestern University, has spent his career studying how people and societies have experienced the radical transitions spurred by advances in technology, such as the Industrial Revolution that began in the late 18th century. Such generous benefits are unlikely to be offered anytime soon, acknowledges Muro, who has worked with manufacturing communities in the Midwest (see "Manufacturing Jobs Aren't Coming Back").