Contributions to the following blog were made by former CCC Chair Gregory Hager and CCC Director Ann Drobnis.
We all know there is a lot of data out there, and the amount of data is growing rapidly – 2500 petabyes a day by some estimates. For data-driven fields such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), the availability of massive amounts of data and vast advances in computing power have now brought us to a unique and exciting phase where the availability of data is a major factor shaping the evolution of AI research.
The Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF) recently released report called 10 Steps Congress Can Take to Accelerate Data Innovation, which encourages policymakers to support publishing data to unlock the benefits of data-driven innovation and to encourage industries to make better use of the data. The report states that data “is vital to both growing the economy and addressing important social problems, and Congress has many opportunities to pave the way for more use of data in the public and private sectors.”
The report recommends 10 steps that Congress can take to accelerate data innovation:
Publishing data the government already collects, including:
1. Establish a permanent open-data policy for the federal government,
2. Allow USDA to publicly release Common Land Unit data, and
3. Establish an API for legislative data.
Collecting more data that can be put to valuable use, including:
4. Develop a complete 3D National Elevation Dataset,
5. Require corporate data transparency, and
6. Address the LGBT data gap.
Encouraging industries to make better use of data, including:
7. Adopt universal patient identifiers for healthcare,
8. Incentivize adoption of electronic health records for mental-health providers,
9. Foster use of alternative credit data, and
10. Ensure consumers can access their utility data.
Many of these recommendations are synergistic with a recent Computing Community Consortium (CCC) report on Artificial Intelligence for Social Good, which looked at the successful deployments of AI systems and the subsequent discussions about how to use AI technologies and the resulting data for broad societal benefit. The report focuses on four areas as well as crosscutting issues that are common to advancing all of them: urban computing, sustainability, health, and public welfare.
Like many technologies before it, AI technologies and the data that they produce will find their way into a broad spectrum of applications, many of which we cannot imagine today. ITIF recommends that Congress should “unlock the benefits of data-driven innovation in every aspect of the economy and society by leveraging data at every opportunity to improve government services and public policy.” This will hopefully help federal agencies solve “important policy challenges and help shepherd in a new era of innovation, productivity, and economic growth.”
See the ITIF report to learn more.
