【正文】 lyfunded research and development in AI. Applications of AI for Public Good One area of great optimism about AI and machine learning is their potential to improve people‘s lives by helping to solve some of the world‘s greatest challenges and inefficiencies. Many have pared the promise of AI to the transformative impacts of advancements in mobile puting. Public and private sector investments in basic and applied Ramp。D and harness AI for good, while also addressing shared challenges. Today‘s AI has important applications in cybersecurity, and is expected to play an increasing role for both defensive and offensive cyber measures. Currently, designing and operating secure systems requires significant time and attention from experts. Automating this expert work partially or entirely may increase security across a much broader range of systems and applications at dramatically lower cost, and could increase the agility of the Nation‘s cyberdefenses. Using AI may help maintain the rapid response required to detect and react to the landscape of evolving threats. Challenging issues are raised by the potential use of AI in weapon systems. The United States has incorporated autonomy in certain weapon systems for decades, allowing for greater precision in the use of weapons and safer, more humane military operations. Noheless, moving away from direct human control of weapon systems involves some risks and can raise legal and ethical questions. The key to incorporating autonomous and semiautonomous weapon systems into American defense planning is to ensure that . Government entities are always acting in accordance with international humanitarian law, taking appropriate steps to control proliferation, and working with partners and Allies to develop standards related to the development and use of such weapon systems. The United States has actively participated in ongoing international discussion on Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems, and anticipates continued robust international discussion of these potential weapon systems. Agencies across the . Government are working to develop a single, governmentwide policy, consistent with international humanitarian law, on autonomous and semiautonomous weapons. Preparing for the Future AI holds the potential to be a major driver of economic growth and social progress, if industry, civil society, government, and the public work together to support development of the technology with thoughtful attention to its potential and to managing its risks. The . Government has several roles to play. It can convene conversations about important issues and help to set the agenda for public debate. It can monitor the safety and fairness of applications as they develop, and adapt regulatory frameworks to encourage innovation while protecting the public. It can provide public policy tools to ensure that disruption in the means and methods of work enabled by AI increases productivity while avoiding negative economic consequences for certain sectors of the workforce. It can support basic research and the application of AI to public good. It can support development of a skilled, diverse workforce. And government can use AI itself to serve the public faster, PREPARING FOR THE FUTURE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE 4 more effectively, and at lower cost. Many areas of public policy, from education and the economic safety , to defense, environmental preservation, and criminal justice, will see new opportunities and new challenges driven by the continued progress of AI. The . Government must continue to build its capacity to understand and adapt to these changes. As the technology of AI continues to develop, practitioners must ensure that AIenabled systems are governable。D is managed through the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) program, and supported primarily by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Office of Naval Research (ONR), and the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA). Major national research efforts such as the National Strategic Computing Initiative, the Big Data Initiative, and the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative also contribute indirectly to the progress of AI research. The current and projected benefits of AI technology are large, adding to the Nation‘s economic vitality and to the productivity and wellbeing of its people. A panion document lays out a strategic plan for Federallyfunded research and development in AI. As a contribution toward preparing the United States for a future in which AI plays a growing role, we survey the current state of AI, its existing and potential applications, and the questions that progress in AI raise for society and public policy. We also make remendations for specific further actions by Federal agencies and other actors. A Brief History of AI Endowing puters with humanlike intelligence has been a dream of puter experts since the dawn of electronic puting. Although the term ―Artificial Intelligence‖ was not coined until 1956, the roots of the field go back to at least the 1940s,3 and the idea of AI was crystalized in Alan Turing‘s famous 1950 paper, ―Computing Machinery and Intelligence.‖ Turing‘s paper posed the question: ―Can machines think?‖ It also proposed a test for answering that question,4 and raised the possibility that a machine might be programmed to learn from experience much as a young child does. In the ensuing decades, the field of AI went through ups and downs as some AI research problems proved more difficult than anticipated and others proved insurmountable with the technologies of the time. It wasn‘t until the late 1990s that research progress in A