Report on the Future of AI

The Office of the President of the US has released its first report on AI called “Preparing for the Future of Artificial Intelligence.” It’s a disappointing report in the aspect that it lists a current state of AI, not a future state.

Here is our summary of it, with our thoughts.

Medical AI

One of the promises for AI is that it has benefits for society as a whole. The Report notes, for example, that Veterans Affairs is using AI to predict medical complications and treat combat wounds, leading to better healing and lower medical costs.

John Hopkins University is also using AI to predict complications to reduce infections at hospitals.

In the future, AI will be used to review electronic health records to analyze health risks but, in the view of the Digital Finance Institute, such changes are fraught with issues of privacy law and consent, as well as insurability implications and represent a peril of AI and automation.

Infrastructure

In infrastructure, AI can be applied to improve flows of traffic with AI applied to smart traffic light systems that could save the US economy $121 billion per year and eliminate 56 billion pounds of CO2 annually. For air travel delays, if air traffic systems were improved with AI and machine learning algorithms to use airspace more efficiently, it could save the US economy $50 billion per year in air transportation delay costs.

Cars

Cars equipped with AI that can self-drive also hold enormous promise. The benefits of self-driving cars include 90% fewer accidents, 40% lower insurance costs, elimination of drunk and drugged drivers and the ability of people with disabilities to have new-found mobility.

Animal Control

There is some thought being given to leveraging AI to improve animal migration, especially of endangered species using AI image classification software to analyze tourist photos from social media sites to identify animals and build a database of their migration.

We believe, at the Digital Finance Institute, that it could work for whales and at risk populations of lions in Africa, for example, or polar bears in Canada’s Arctic. Such tracking and tracing can protect animals from poachers and save endangered species. In the same vein, autonomous ocean vessels with AI can be used to detect and report illegal fishing in oceans and other illegal activities such as drug trafficking off the coast of British Columbia.

Humanitarian Aid

In the global scene of things, at the Digital Finance Institute, we believe that AI has the potential to make a material impact on making humanitarian aid delivery safer and more effective and to provide personnel management, navigation, communications and medical assistance in a more tailored fashion and more efficiently, saving billions annually.

Investment

The US government is supporting the AI sector in the private sector, which it views as the priority, and it is looking at creating policy and legal environments that allow innovation to flourish.

Diversity

The issue of diversity in AI is problematic. In the US, just 18% of computer science graduates are women, down from 37% in 1984. In order to solve the problem, the US is assisting with the support for diversity in AI.

The diversity arises in the coding of AI and also in the issue of the fact that AI has been used to create bias predictive results, calling into question issue of justice and bias generally.