On behalf of the National Science and Technology Council’s Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence, the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) National Coordination Office has released a Request for Information (RFI) on updates to the 2016 National Artificial Intelligence Research and Development Strategic Plan.
The 2016 National Artificial Intelligence Research & Development Strategic Plan focused on research areas that industry is considered unlikely to address and identified 7 strategies for Federally-funded AI research:
Strategy 1: Make long-term investments in AI research. Prioritize investments in the next generation of AI that will drive discovery and insight and enable the United States to remain a world leader in AI.
Strategy 2: Develop effective methods for human-AI collaboration. Rather than replace humans, most AI systems will collaborate with humans to achieve optimal performance. Research is needed to create effective interactions between humans and AI systems.
Strategy 3: Understand and address the ethical, legal, and societal implications of AI. We expect AI technologies to behave according to the formal and informal norms to which we hold our fellow humans. Research is needed to understand the ethical, legal, and social implications of AI, and to develop methods for designing AI systems that align with ethical, legal, and societal goals.
Strategy 4: Ensure the safety and security of AI systems. Before AI systems are in widespread use, assurance is needed that the systems will operate safely and securely, in a controlled, well-defined, and well-understood manner. Further progress in research is needed to address this challenge of creating AI systems that are reliable, dependable, and trustworthy.
Strategy 5: Develop shared public datasets and environments for AI training and testing. The depth, quality, and accuracy of training datasets and resources significantly affect AI performance. Researchers need to develop high quality datasets and environments and enable responsible access to high-quality datasets as well as to testing and training resources.
Strategy 6: Measure and evaluate AI technologies through standards and benchmarks. . Essential to advancements in AI are standards, benchmarks, testbeds, and community engagement that guide and evaluate progress in AI. Additional research is needed to develop a broad spectrum of evaluative techniques.
Strategy 7: Better understand the national AI R&D workforce needs. Advances in AI will require a strong community of AI researchers. An improved understanding of current and future R&D workforce demands in AI is needed to help ensure that sufficient AI experts are available to address the strategic R&D areas outlined in this plan.
Key research foci within these strategies include:
- Enhancing the perceptual capabilities of AI systems
- Developing scalable AI systems
- Advancing hardware for improved AI
- Developing more capable and reliable robots
- Improving fairness, transparency, and accountability-by-design
- Developing AI techniques for human augmentation
- Establishing AI technology benchmarks
- Developing open-source software libraries and toolkits
- Increasing the availability of AI testbeds
The new RFI calls for “ input from the public, including those directly performing Artificial Intelligence (AI) research and development (R&D) and directly affected by such R&D, on whether the strategic plan should be revised and, if so, the ways in which it may be improved. This includes suggestions as to the addition, removal, or modification of strategic aims, comments as to existing strategic aims as well as their past or future implementation by the Federal government. The public input provided in response to this RFI will inform the NITRD National Coordination Office and the Select Committee in updating the National Artificial Intelligence Research and Development Strategic Plan.” Submissions are due by 11:59 PM ET on October 26th, 2018.
Comments may be emailed to AI-RFI@nitrd.gov; faxed to (202) 459-9673, Attn: Faisal D’Souza; or mailed to Attn: Faisal D’Souza, NCO, 2415 Eisenhower Avenue, Alexandria, VA 22314, USA.
In support of the national efforts, the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) will be leading a Community Roadmap Effort, by holding a series of workshops, culminating in a Roadmap from the Community, with the first workshop taking place November 14-15th in Chicago. To learn more about the CCC’s work in AI, please visit the AI working group page or the AI section of the CCC by CS Area.
For more information on the NITRD RFI on AI visit the NITRD webpage.
