Don Basile is an entrepreneur and venture capitalist with more than 20 years of executive experience in technology, healthcare and telecommunications.
AI’s next frontier requires ethics built through policy. Will Donald Trump deliver?
With one foot in its science fiction past and the other in the new frontier of science and tech innovations, AI occupies a unique place in our cultural imagination. Will we live into a future where machines are as intelligent — or frighteningly, more so — than humans? We have already witnessed AI predict the outcome of the latest U. S. presidential election when many policy wonks failed.
Perhaps we are further along than we thought.
In October, then-President Obama hosted the White House Frontiers Conference , which focused on the leading global technologies featured in the November issue of WIRED, which was guest edited by Obama. Given that our country was founded by innovators and disruptors who envisioned and executed exciting new technologies of their time — like the postal service, the precursor to our inbox struggles — it feels like we’re coming full circle to have our then-current president comment on the next wave of technology that will keep the U. S. on the forefront of innovation. Artificial intelligence is at the heart of that innovation.
Of course, now that the 2016 election has come to pass, there’s an elephant in the room: Donald Trump. What President Trump will have to add to this conversation is, as of now, another great mystery.
Though many might argue the point, Obama put it to WIRED that now is the best time to be alive. The next four years will admittedly be different, but the point stands. There are no real reasons to believe technology’s rapid pace will slow much, and the same goes for AI.
So far, we’ve seen just the tip of the AI iceberg through technology such as virtual personal assistants, self-driving cars and credit card fraud prediction technology. If we pause for a second to recognize how incredible it is that we can ask our phones for directions, then sit back as our self-driving Uber takes the wheel, as well as get an email update instantly when our credit card may have been hacked based on algorithmic learning, then we might just feel like our current reality is a sci-fi plotline.
The implications of AI will be important moving forward, and may require more attention on a federal level. In a report released by the White House on the current and future state of AI, leading innovators considered not only the technology that will drive AI, but also the ethical considerations that must fuel its growth.
