The White House is hosting an event with technology companies, academics and others Thursday (May 10) to talk about artificial intelligence (AI), someone familiar with the event confirmed to Multichannel News.
From self-driving cars to Siri and Alexa, machine-learning technology is a transformation already underway.
“This week’s artificial intelligence event hosted by the White House is an important step to building collaboration between government and industry," said Information Technology Industry Council president Dean Garfield of the gathering. "The tech sector is committed to ensuring that all Americans reap the benefits of this transformative technology, which has the potential to save lives, improve how we harvest food, transform education and more."
Garfield said one key is government investment in R&D, as well as programs that prepare the workforce for an AI future.
Some ITI members will be at the event. The Washington Post was reporting that Amazon, Google and Intel, all of which are ITI members, will be among those in attendance.
The conference has been dubbed the "Artificial Intelligence for American Industry" summit and will be hosted by deputy assistant for technology policy Michael Kratsios.
Under President Obama, the White House released a report on AI in 2016. It concluded: "Accelerating AI capabilities will enable automation of some tasks that have long required human labor. These transformations will open up new opportunities for individuals, the economy and society, but they will also disrupt the current livelihoods of millions of Americans."
Its key action items were:
1. "Invest in and develop AI for its many benefits;
2. "Educate and train Americans for jobs of the future;
3. "Aid workers in the transition and empower workers to ensure broadly shared growth."
