Why the US Needs a Moonshot Mentality for AI - Led by the Public Sector

Fei-Fei Li and John Etchemendy, the founding co-directors of the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, in an op-ed on WSJ argue that AI is too important to be left entirely in the hands of the big tech companies: Among other things, 2023 will be remembered as the year artificial intelligence went mainstream. But while Americans from every corner of the country began dabbling with tools like ChatGPT and Midjourney, we believe 2023 is also the year Congress failed to act on what we see as the big picture: AI's impact will be far bigger than the products that companies are releasing at a breakneck pace. AI is a broad, general-purpose technology with profound implications for society that cannot be overstated. [...] So what needs to happen? President Biden has set the stage, and with all this attention, it's time for Congress to act. They need to pass the Create AI Act, adhere to the elements called on by the new executive order, and invest more in the public sector to ensure America's leadership in creating AI technology steeped in the values we stand for. We also encourage an investment in human capital to bring more talent to the U.S. to work in the field of AI within academia and the government. But why does this matter? Because this technology isn't just good for optimizing ad revenue for technology companies, but can fuel the next generation of scientific discovery, ranging from nuclear fusion to curing cancer. Furthermore, to truly understand this technology, including its sometimes unpredictable emergent capabilities and behaviors, public-sector researchers urgently need to replicate and examine the under-the-hood architecture of these models. That's why government research labs need to take a larger role in AI. [...]

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