CHAPTER 8

Policy Implications of AI

Stephen Kwan

Abstract

The U.S. economy is market-driven and the government plays a smaller role than in other countries where top-down policies and regulations are promulgated by the government. In this chapter we look at the recent views of the U.S. government and industry regarding policies for the future of jobs and artificial intelligence. Examples from other countries will be discussed to provide contrast.

Acknowledgment

P.K. Agarwal and Yosuke Takashima contributed to the breakout group discussion.

U.S. Position

The U.S. government had often taken the attitude of laissez faire by abstaining from interfering in the workings of the free market in driving its economy. In certain areas, the U.S. government had initiated and participated in “public, private partnerships” in working with industries to ensure U.S. competitiveness and foster leadership and growth in innovation. For example, the many programs at the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) including cybersecurity, smart cities, advanced scientific projects, and technology partnerships with industries and academia.1 In addition, the National Science Foundation (NSF) had also funded many basic research programs at universities and research institutions.2

Even though the U.S. government had funded and supported many research programs in advanced technologies, it had promulgated very few (if at all) policies and regulations regarding their development and application in industry. This is most evident in an event that was held at the White House, which resulted in the report “The National Artificial Intelligence Research and Development Strategic Plan” (OSTP 2016). In summary:

“This resulting AI R&D Strategic Plan defines a high-level framework that can be used to identify scientific and technological needs in AI, and to track the progress and maximize the impact of R&D investments to fill those needs. It also establishes priorities for Federally-funded R&D in AI looking beyond near-term AI capabilities toward long-term transformation impacts of AI on society and the world.” (OSTP 2016, p. v).

This plan also laid out seven priorities: 1. Make long-term investments in AI research; 2. Develop effect methods for human–AI collaboration; 3. Understand and address the ethical, legal, and societal implications of AI; 4. Ensure the safety and security of AI systems; 5. Develop shared public datasets and environments for AI training and testing; 6. Measure and evaluate AI technologies through standards3 and benchmarks; 7. Better understand the national AI R&D workforce needs (OSTP 2016, pp. 6–7).

The report indicated that even though there were some indications of impending increased shortage of AI experts reported by industry, there was no official data available. The report further recommended that additional studies were needed to better understand and address the current and future national workforce needs for AI R&D.

A more recent event at the White House discussed “..., the promise of AI and the policies we will need to realize that promise for the American people and maintain U.S. leadership in the age of artificial Intelligence” (OSTP 2018, p. 1) It also reassured the U.S. government’s commitment to “… our free market approach to scientific discovery harness the combined strengths of government, industry, and academia, …” (OSTP 2018 p. 1 quoted Deputy Assistant to the President for Technology Policy Michael Kratsios). No specific policies were recommended but the key takeaways from the summit were: 1. Supporting the national AI R&D ecosystem; 2. Developing the American workforce to take full advantage of the benefits of AI; 3. Removing barriers to AI innovations in the United States; 4. Enabling high-impact, sector-specific applications of AI.

Of significance to the current discussion is the aforementioned item 2. The breakout session at the White House event included discussion about the need to prepare America for jobs of the future to match skill needs of industry with a renewed focus on STEM education, technical apprenticeships, reskilling, and lifelong learning programs. The discussion also recognized that “many existing occupations will significantly change or become obsolete” (OSTP 2018; p. 2). Recognizing that jobs will be lost in the future because of advances in AI and other automation technologies is an important step in building policies for the future. No detailed report or concrete action plan were made public after the event.

The notion that jobs will become obsolete and lost in the future because of advances in AI and other automation technologies is also recognized in industry and academia. Dr. Andrew Ng, a pioneer in AI, has been working on new educational structures on top of existing K1 to 12 and higher education that will help people succeed in the new economy. He also supported a conditional (e.g., study to gain new skills) basic income to combat job loss (Castellanos 2018). Some European trade unions and industry workers are proactively working with management so that they would reduce job loss and share the benefits of automation (O’Connor 2018).

The U.S. government has plans to support the AI industry and help develop the needed future workforce (OSTP 2018). To that end, there are executive branch activities such as designating AI as Administration R&D priority in the budget request to Congress (for an excellent summary, see Future of Life Institute 2018a). There are also some concrete legislative activities related to AI and the future workforce. Of note is H.R. 4829 “To promote a 21st century artificial intelligence workforce” (H.R. 4829 (2017–2018)). This bill is also known as the “AI JOBS Act of 2018.” As of this writing the bill was referred to the Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions. The U.S. government also recognized the potential of AI and other automation technologies to be applied to public service and its future workforce (e.g., see events by Partnership for Public Service (2018) and AAAI (2018)).

Even though there are activities in the executive and legislative branches of the U.S. government, some legislators, citizens, and industry groups are questioning the lack of a central policy focus on this important and growing industry where the United States currently has a leading role. They are starting to discuss whether the United States needs and should have a set of comprehensive AI policies (e.g., ITIF 2018, Delaney 2018, Carter 2018, Knight 2018).

On February 11, 2019, the White House announced that President Trump had signed an executive order “Maintaining American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence” (OSTP 2019, Presidential Executive Order 13859 (2019)). The Deputy Assistant to the President for Technology Policy Michael Kratsios also commented on the policy in an opinion piece (Kratsios 2019). This U.S. policy expressed the President’s sentiment that “Continued American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence is of paramount importance to maintaining the economic and national security of the United States” (OSTP 2019). The policy is labeled as the “American AI Initiative” (op. cit.) that will be:

• Investing in AI research and development (R&D)
• Unleashing AI resources
• Setting AI governance standards
• Building the AI workforce
• International engagement and protecting our AI advantage

The Executive Order also calls on relevant U.S. government agencies to come up with proposals to implement the policy in the near future.

As the U.S. government and industries invest more and more in the innovation, development and deployment of AI technologies, other nations are also prioritizing AI for the benefits and betterment of their own industry and society (see section 2). As competition becomes more intense and politicized, trade and technology exchanges are increasingly coming under intensified scrutiny. The U.S. Department of Commerce is currently seeking public comments on potentially restricting export of “… certain emerging technologies [e.g., including AI and robotics] that are essential to the national security of the US” (Politi 2018).

Position of Other Nations

As mentioned in section 1, the U.S. government often has a light hand in setting industrial policies and regulations, instead it depends on public/private sector partnerships in promoting and supporting industry priorities such as AI. Many other nations of the world have taken approaches ranging from one similar to the United States to where the practice is to promulgate top-down policies and regulations. An excellent survey of these policies can be found in (Future of Life 2018b). It listed international strategies for the EU, Nordic-Baltic Region, UN, UAE/India, G7, France/Canada as well as national strategies of Australia, Austria, Canada, China, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Russia, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Sweden, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, the United States, and United Kingdom. These policies include formal national strategies, increase in budget to support AI research and education, legal framework for the AI industry, and a national white paper about AI. Other overviews of national AI strategies can be found in (Dutton 2018) and (Styslinger 2018).

In the following sections, examples from the U.K. and China are discussed to compare and contrast the U.S. position.

Position of the United Kingdom

The UK government had developed a comprehensive and focused policy and action plan for the challenges of AI in industry and society. As a matter of fact, AI and Data are parts of four grand challenges that the UK government established as part of their industrial strategy (UK 2017). The Government Office of AI and Center for Data Ethics and Innovation were also created to connect industry (e.g., the AI Council, an industry group) and the citizenry to the regulators so that their voices could be heard and heeded. Detailed responses from the UK government to the recommendations in the House of Lords AI Select Committee’s Report provides a good review of the UK government’s plan and missions (UK 2018).

The UK government agreed with the report that “… Blanket AI-specific regulation, at this stage, would be inappropriate. We believe that existing sector-specific regulators are best placed to consider the impact on their sectors of any subsequent regulation which may be needed” (ibid, p. 35). Furthermore, “… the Government committed to work with businesses to develop an agile approach to regulation that promotes innovation and the growth of new sectors, while protecting citizens and the environment” (op. cit.) The report also acknowledged that there will be a disruption in the labor market and jobs will be lost and created. The government’s response reassured that actions will be taken to study, assess, and plan for education, re-education to prepare the workforce for the future. This is a good example of how a government partners with industry and heeds market forces to meet the challenges of emerging technologies for the benefit of society.

Position of China

In July 2017, the State Council of the People’s Republic of China published the “New Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Plan” (PRC 2017). It was followed in December by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) publishing the “Three-year action plan to promote the development of a new generation of artificial intelligence industry (2018–2020)” and its interpretation (MIIT 2017a,b). Dutton is accurate in saying that this policy is “… the most comprehensive of all national AI strategies, with initiatives and goals for R&D, industrialization, talent development, education and skills acquisition, standard setting and regulations, ethical norms and security” (Dutton 2018). The plan involved a great deal of top-down investment in both monetary and manpower terms. The plan also calls for Chinese companies endeavor to reach the same level as the United States by 2020, continue to make breakthroughs and become world’s premier AI innovation center by 2030. The Chinese government intends to partner with national tech companies and industry groups such as the China Association for Artificial Intelligence (CAAI http://caai.cn/), the China Artificial Intelligence Industry Innovation Alliance (CAIIIA) to integrate resources and accelerate growth based on the plan (Future of Life Institute 2018c, Jing 2018).

This plan had engendered a lot of interest in the United States. Some have urged the U.S. government and industry to follow China’s example (e.g., Knight 2017). Some have observed that the United States is already falling behind China because of the Chinese government and industry push (Lee 2018, Russel 2018). There are some signs that the Chinese impetus has been blunted by the current climate in trade and competition (Lucas 2018).

Concluding Remarks

In this chapter we have described the current status of U.S. position on AI and contrasted it with that of other nations with specific examples from the U.K. and China. Some common themes we observed are as follows:

1. National governments are starting to recognize that AI and emerging automation technologies will have profound effects on their industry, society, and citizenry. Many of these nations have started to establish strategies and plans (with various characteristics and degree of complexity) to meet the challenges head-on.
2. There is also recognition that the national workforce will be affected because of job loss and the gap in skills needed to meet the demand of new jobs. Some nations are starting to study the phenomenon and develop educational, retraining, and other actions to prepare their workforce for the future.
3. There are still a lot of unknowns as to the effect of AI and emerging automation technologies on industry, jobs, and society in general but we are seeing some concerted efforts in some nations to foster public/private partnerships, either top-down or market-driven, to meet the challenges.

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