Senate AI Bill for $2.2 Billion for a Five Year National AI Strategy

the US has a bipartisan senate bill – Artificial Intelligence Initiative Act (AI-IA), which would organize a coordinated national strategy for developing AI and provide a $2.2 billion federal investment over five years to build an AI-ready workforce, accelerating the responsible delivery of AI applications from government agencies, academia, and the private sector over the next 10 years.

In February, the Trump administration released a national artificial intelligence strategy that called on agencies to ramp up investments in AI research and explore other ways to advance the tech across society. However, the plan included few specific policy proposals and no additional funding to support those efforts, which drew criticism across the tech community.

In March 2019, Senators Heinrich and Portman announced the formation of the bipartisan Senate Artificial Intelligence (AI) Caucus to address transformative technology with implications spanning a number of fields including transportation, health care, agriculture, manufacturing, and national security.

The Artificial Intelligence Initiative Act would:

* Establish a National AI Coordination Office (Director and staff to coordinate federal AI efforts), an AI Interagency Committee (senior leaders across federal departments), and an AI Advisory Committee (non-governmental experts) to develop a National Strategic Plan for AI research and development, and facilitate coordination across government agencies.

* Require the National Institute of Standards and Technologies (NIST) to identify metrics which may be used to establish standards for evaluating AI algorithms and their effectiveness, as well as the quality of training data sets ($40 million each year).

* Require the National Science Foundation (NSF) to formulate educational goals for addressing algorithm accountability, explainability, data bias, privacy as well as societal and ethical implications of AI. NSF will also fund research on both the technical and educational aspects of AI and its effect on our society through awarding to up to five new “Multidisciplinary Centers for Artificial Intelligence Research and Education.” At least one of these five centers will have K-12 education as its primary focus, one will be minority-serving institution, and all will include a lifelong education component. (+$500 million total; five Centers at $20 million per year for 2020-2024)

* Require the Department of Energy (DOE) to create an AI research program, building state-of-the-art computing facilities that will be made available first and foremost to government and academic AI researchers, but will also be available to private sector users on a cost-recovery basis as practicable. The bill will establish up to five Artificial Intelligence Research Centers to include institutions of higher education and national laboratories. (+$1.5 billion; five AI Research Centers at $60 million each per year for 2020-2024)

SOURCES – Senator Heinrich
Written By Brian Wang