A pattern is emerging as to how the US government wants to boost AI research. This approach is similar to how early supercomputing infrastructure was built. This means engaging academia and national laboratories and applying their research to solving important domestic problems.
The US National Science Foundation (NSF) announced Tuesday that it will award $140 million to universities to advance basic research in artificial intelligence. The funding targets specific institutions addressing public sector issues such as cybersecurity, climate change, agriculture, public health and education. of The NSF is also funding fundamental research into the building blocks of AI to ensure future models are ethical, trustworthy, and accessible.
The Need for Coordinated Initiatives in AI
“In terms of advancing ethical research and understanding responsible use cases, the first step is basic research, which is ideal for academic institutions and universities,” he said. Hadan Omaris a senior analyst focused on AI policy at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a Washington, DC-based think tank.
Over the past few years, there has been a backlash against AI research by the private sector. “So governments need to make the necessary efforts to balance this out,” he said.
The AI research being conducted by universities is not market-oriented, instead focusing on solving public sector problems high on the US agenda. Similarly, supercomputers in national laboratories are preferentially used for tasks such as economic modeling and weapons development.
The US government is becoming increasingly concerned about the responsible and safe use of AI. The rapid growth of AI tools like ChatGPT has alarmed US cybersecurity officials. Many U.S. law enforcement agencies, including the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Department of Justice (DOJ), have expressed concern late last month about the harmful use of artificial intelligence and automated systems to break the law. Government agencies say they will use laws and enforcement actions to promote the responsible use of AI.
“Technological advances can bring about significant innovation, but claims of innovation must not cover violations of the law. We will vigorously enforce the law to combat practices and unfair methods of competition,” FTC Chairman Rina Kern said in a statement.
AI arms race
The NSF is funding these AI projects as the United States, European Union, and China enter the AI arms race. The EU is considering an AI law called the Artificial Intelligence Law. It sets the boundaries for AI development to ensure safe and desirable outcomes.
A series of private sector AI breakthroughs by OpenAI, Microsoft, and Google have put the US ahead of China in AI. Previously, China was considered a world leader due to its use of AI in initiatives such as its social credit system. The Chinese system evaluates individuals using facial recognition software that uses data from more than 200 million surveillance cameras in the country, recruitment firm Horizons said on its website.
The US government is not competing with the EU and China on issues such as climate change and agriculture, and the private sector will not provide the tools to solve these problems, Omaar said. The White House is using his AI to solve these domestic problems, and for decades it has turned to academia to find answers, continued Omaar.
Programs funded by the NSF will add to a stronger knowledge base that will eventually become part of the AI race against China and the EU.“Ultimately, the U.S. will have to remain economically competitive in AI,” said Omaar.
geographic diversity
Omaar noted that NSF funding for AI programs is spread across different geographies. This was his one way to keep all regions involved. She noted that the NSF is funding a group led by the University of Minnesota Twin Cities to add basic AI knowledge related to agriculture and forestry. Its proximity to the center of the United States, its high relevance to the region, and the recognition of the university to increase its competitiveness with other research institutes.
“NSF is trying to expand access nationwide. For forestry, it’s the universities that are tackling this problem,” said Omaar.
The NSF has opened national laboratories at academic and research institutions to advance its AI agenda, the NSF said in a statement. “Today’s investment means that NSF and its funding partners have invested nearly $500 million in a research network of AI laboratories that spans nearly every state in the United States,” the NSF said in a statement. said in
Funding area
Funding includes “central processing unit (CPU) and graphics processing unit (GPU) options with multiple accelerators per node, high-speed networking, and sufficient memory capacity (i.e., at least 1 terabyte per node).” According to the January docs From the National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource Task Force, created by the NSF and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) to guide the AI research roadmap.
Other NSF-funded AI initiatives include: A team led by the University of California, Santa Barbara looks at AI cyber agents to detect and prevent hacks (cyber security experts use tools like ChatGPT to create code that can hack systems). or create a letter for social engineering). a Led by the University of Maryland, the group will focus on programs to develop frameworks for AI systems that are trustworthy and impartial across race and gender. a A team led by Columbia University seeks to establish a relationship between AI and the way the human brain processes information.andThe University of Buffalo and others will focus on AI systems that assess whether children need intervention. Two of his other NSF-funded programs look at AI in decision-making and education.
Greater U.S. Efforts
The NSF funding initiative was part of a larger White House announcement on the safe and responsible use of AI. The White House gets commitments from top AI companies including Google, Microsoft, OpenAI and Nvidia to evaluate AI systems based on the platform developed by Scale AI at DEFCON 31 in Las Vegas in August I was able to.
In a statement, the White House said, “This independent exercise will provide important information to researchers and the public about the impact of these models, and help AI companies and developers to fix the problems found in those models. It allows us to take steps to
It’s not clear if large language models such as OpenAI’s GPT-4, the brains behind Microsoft’s BingGPT, will be open for evaluation. The model is closed, unlike GPT-3, which is used by ChatGPT and is open source.
Looming ubiquity
The release of ChatGPT late last year sparked a flurry of activity around generative AI and boosted public and private investment in the technology.A study released this week by the World Economic Forum “Generative AI has received a lot of attention lately, with 19% of the workforce claiming AI can automate more than 50% of their tasks,” said . About 75% of companies surveyed by the WEF plan to introduce artificial intelligence into their daily operations in the next few years.
That said, current applications have met with varying degrees of success. Microsoft released his GPT-4-based BingGPT for testing a few months ago, but early results were not good. AI tools often hallucinated and provided inaccurate or sullen answers. According to StatCounter figures, Microsoft had little to lose by exposing its AI technology, as it had a small 2.79% market share for search engines in April, compared to Google’s 92.61% market share.
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