American Government Launches AI.gov as US Artificial Intelligence Initiatives

A new website namely AI.gov has been launched by the US government as AI initiatives. The website is dedicated to hosting initiatives including development, implementation, and regulation of AI in the nation. The site has come into existence after a month of US President Donald Trump signed an executive order depicting the AI policy of US.

The AI policy embraces various objectives as follows:

•  It encourages related governmental agencies for providing sustained investment in the industry.

•  Reduces barriers and hurdles when it comes to the use of AI to fuel innovation.

•  It creates an action plan that will ensure the country's strategic benefits against foreign adversaries while the introduction of AI-powered technologies.

The US govt site will behave as a hub of information regarding AI-related projects and advancements happening across various sectors.

The new site not only keeps the public informed about the effects of AI-related projects on the country's economy but also assists agencies and institutions with their research and development work.

The most debatable issue these days is whether technologies like automation and machine learning would displace the workforce in recent times or not, the site happens to be the go-to platform to learn about these landmark changes bringing in by AI. Not only the site will aid in retraining the workers for a new set of jobs but also behave as a hub for the genre of people who like to keep themselves updated on the new developments and advancements of the tech-world.

Reportedly at present AI.gov has two major pages out of which one exhibits an overview describing roles of AI in the US economy including President Signed Order. The other page consists of speeches, interviews, international happenings, documents, considerable media coverage. The second section also contains information in general regarding current (during Donald Trump's tenure) and previous (during Barack Obama's tenure) AI initiatives.

The executive order aforementioned bifurcates the government's federal budget proposal for 2020 in different sections. The allocation of funds looks like this-

1. $927 million for AI-centric Defense Department projects.

2. $850 million for AI initiatives funding which is further divided into several agencies – National Science Foundation ($492 million) and Department of Energy ($119 million).

The allocation split also shows the undetermined sum of money will be dedicated to the National Institutes of Health for operating over "AI and ML technology for catalyzing advances in basic and clinical research. Similarly, an undetermined sum of money will be allocated to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) whose objective is yet not known.