The White House is meeting execs from Facebook, Amazon, and other tech companies this week to talk about artificial intelligence
- The White House has reportedly invited executives from Facebook, Amazon, and 36 other companies to discuss the use of AI for national progress this week, reports the Washington Post.
- The White House has been largely silent on the subject of AI and its potential to displace jobs - even as Silicon Valley invests heavily in the technology.
- In addition to executives from the tech industry and from industries familiar with AI implementation (e.g. Ford), the White House has invited academics, government officials, and AI developers.
The White House is reportedly convening tech executives, academics, and developers for a summit on AI scheduled for Thursday of this week.
The executives will be coming from 38 companies, including tech titans Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Intel; and from companies familiar with using AI like Ford and United Airlines, according to the Washington Post. Among the highest-profile attendees will be Intel CEO Brian Krzanich and Facebook VP of AI Jerome Pesenti.
Amazon, which hasn't met with the White House since President Trump started tweeting about the company's business practices, is reportedly planning to send Rohit Prasad, head scientist for the Alexa AI-powered virtual assistant.
Topics of discussion are said to include how industries like healthcare and transportation can best use AI, how to fund research in the field, and strategies for formulating federal policies and regulations.
This summit could mark a shift in how the Trump administration approaches the notion of artificial intelligence: While the rise of AI has been the talk of Silicon Valley for some time, the White House has been largely silent on the topic since Trump took office in 2017.
While the Trump administration has made job creation a cornerstone of its policy platform, it's generally accepted that AI will prove disruptive to industry and potentially replace workers across all sorts of jobs. Now, it seems, the White House is hosting this event to make up for some lost time.
Read the full Washington Post report here.