Yesterday the director of MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) was among the attendees at a special White House summit focused on the topic of artificial intelligence (AI).
CSAIL director Daniela Rus and MIT professor Erik Brynjolfsson were among the academics who participated in the summit, which also included senior executives from many companies, including Amazon, Facebook and Google, as well as senior Trump adviser Jared Kushner and Deputy Assistant for Technology Policy Michael Kratsios.
Kratsios described the White House priorities in AI, which include productivity, growth, and participation. He announced a new Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence made of up the leading AI researchers in government that will coordinate AI investments across federal agencies. His prepared remarks called for a “free-market approach” to innovation that would make use of the combined strength of industry, academia and government while limiting regulation that he said could “hamstring companies.”
Major topics raised at the summit included the AI R&D ecosystem, worker retraining, STEM education and lifelong learning programs. Rus was also part of break-out panels that discussed the future of transportation and new approaches to public/private partnerships with respect to R&D.
“At CSAIL and MIT we have been focusing on AI since the founding of the field in 1956. Universities have been and continue to be critical in pushing the AI field forward,” says Rus. “It’s wonderful to see AI as a vital part of the future of our country.”