AI: The Fourth Industrial Revolution

Artificial Intelligence the fastest growing field in tech has another prominent country willing to foster further research into the technology. With fear of China potentially leading the fourth industrial revolution,  a new bill was introduced in congress by Congresswoman Elise Stefanik. Her purpose for the bill is because she felt that “Artificial Intelligence is a constantly developing technology that will likely touch every aspect of our lives”. The major fear that concerns the US government is that with China increasing its funding into Artificial Intelligence the US needed to increase its addition to AI technology development.

According to Stefanik “The new bill will develop a commission to review advances in AI, identify our nation’s AI needs and make actionable recommendations of what direction we need to take.” Essentially meaning that the new commission would have to look into ways into what type of AI research needs to be conducted and give incentives to companies to share data on research that they have already completed.

After the introduction of this bill in March the President had an AI summit that included government officials, researchers, and major companies to discuss the future of AI technology and how it can be used by the government. After the summit the president established a brand-new AI task force that will be tasked with the job of determining the ways in which the federal government should invest in Artificial technology. The president’s goal is to “improve virtually every aspect of our lives, create vast new wealth for American workers and families, and open up bold, new frontiers in science, medicine, and communication.”

The summit was one of many steps taken by the government to help gain an edge in AI. Furthermore, the government has seen growth in investments made in AI and related technology since 2015. In addition, when President Trump introduced his budget for the 2019 fiscal year he made Artificial Intelligence a priority for the budget. All of these advancements made to invest in AI will not only help revolutionize the lives of every day Americans but impact the way business is conducted in every field.

Finally, with all of the investments made by the government in AI technology the business sector that might benefit the most could be small businesses. Most small businesses are always looking for ways to cut cost. With AI technology the use of AI can greatly reduce cost for small businesses that otherwise would not be possible. One of the most important ways that AI can help with cost reduction is with marketing by using AI algorithms. According to Artur Kiulian “small companies can find the best marketing strategy and dramatically reduce their CPC (cost per click) thanks to the sentiment analysis algorithms that analyze customer engagement with their marketing campaigns”. The use of AI algorithms would reduce cost for small businesses because they would have to hire less of a management team while also having a system that could analyze data without the need for additional man power. The use of AI for marketing is just one of many ways that small businesses can reduce cost and help their business grow.

Source:

https://www.defensenews.com/congress/2018/03/21/new-bill-would-prepare-us-for-artificial-intelligence-threat/

http://fortune.com/2018/05/10/white-house-artificial-intelligence-task-force/