President Donald Trump today signed an executive order that puts the White House Office of Management and Budget in charge of drawing up a roadmap for how federal agencies use artificial intelligence software.
The roadmap, due for publication in 180 days, will cover AI applications used by the federal government for purposes other than defense or national security. The Department of Defense and the U.S. intelligence community already have drawn up a different set of rules for using AI.
Today’s order could well be the Trump administration’s final word on a technology marked by rapid innovation — and more than a little controversy.
Future regulations could have an outsized impact on Amazon and Microsoft, two of the largest developers of AI technologies. The sharpest debates have focused on facial recognition software, but there are also issues relating to algorithmic bias, data privacy and transparency.
