President Trump signed an executive order Monday to keep America ahead of China in the race to develop artificial intelligence.
The “American AI initiative” calls for federal agencies to invest more funding in artificial intelligence research and calls for AI training to prepare the American workforce for an AI-enhanced future.
Trump signs AI executive order
In a statement, the White House said that developing AI is “of paramount importance to maintaining the economic and national security of the United States” and lays out several points for maintaining tech dominance.
The initiative calls for federal agencies to prioritize AI research and to make government data available to AI researchers to ensure that America stays on top of the global competition. It does not allocate any funding for research and is sketched in broad strokes, leading critics to say that it lacks substance, but it sends a clear message that the Trump administration recognizes the necessity of revolutionizing American technology while keeping potentially harmful effects of AI under control.
The initiative envisions a technologically dominant America with AI-powered “autonomous cars, industrial robots, algorithms for disease diagnosis, and more,” but also addresses concerns that AI will kill jobs with automation by directing federal agencies to prepare American workers to adapt to the technology rather than having their jobs replaced by it.
“AI is something that touches every aspect of people’s lives,” a Trump administration official told reporters on Sunday. “What this initiative attempts to do is to bring all those together under one umbrella and show the promise of this technology for the American people.”
AI could have benefits for society, like enhanced medical treatments, but many have concerns about the technology’s impact on jobs and privacy, or more speculatively — or perhaps not — the possibility of a machine takeover. To address those concerns, the plan calls for the establishment of technical, safety, and regulatory standards to address broader concerns about AI’s potentially harmful effects, noting that AI must “not compromise our American values, civil liberties, or freedoms.”
Effort to counter China
American tech giants like Amazon and Google have made big strides in AI technology with consumer gadgets like Alexa. While Silicon Valley continues to lead the world in AI, China has shown a keen interest in developing the technology to enhance its surveillance state and economy.
Although the executive order doesn’t mention China directly, experts say that it’s clearly intended to send a message to America’s arch global competitor. Some tech experts say that artificial intelligence is the frontier in a new arms race, or “space race,” between America and China. Experts have warned that China’s AI capabilities are surging ahead and that America must do more to stay abreast. Former Defense Secretary James Mattis sent Trump a memo last year warning of the necessity of investing in new AI technology.
The aspiring superpower made becoming an AI giant by 2030 a policy goal in 2017 and experts say that China has made significant strides, boasting more new AI patents than any country since 2014.
While some are skeptical of the order’s impact, others say that it sends a strong message that the U.S. is unified in the pursuit of tech dominance.
“I read [the order] as a demand for the federal agencies to give the White House specifics for what steps they are going to do to make AI a priority and what resources they need to make those steps a reality,” said Gregory C. Allen, an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security. “Overall, this [order] is great news.”
Trump has been engaged in an ongoing trade war with China and he has challenged Chinese theft of American technology and intellectual property.
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