A summary of the AI Now public symposium, hosted by the White House and New York University’s Information Law Institute, July 7th, 2016

Artificial intelligence (AI) refers to a constellation of technologies, including machine learning, perception, reasoning, and natural language processing. While the field has been pursuing principles and applications for over 65 years, recent advances, uses, and attendant public excitement have returned it to the spotlight. The impact of early AI systems is already being felt, bringing with it challenges and opportunities, and laying the foundation on which future advances in AI will be integrated into social and economic domains. The potential wide-ranging impact make it necessary to look carefully at the ways in which these technologies are being applied now, whom they’re benefiting, and how they’re structuring our social, economic, and interpersonal lives.
AI Now was the final in a five-part series of convenings spearheaded by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the National Economic Council. Each event examined AI from a different perspective, ranging from law and governance, to AI safety and control, to the potential use of AI for public good, to the potential futures of AI.
Now complemented these approaches by focusing on the social and economic impacts of AI over the next ten years, offering space to discuss some of the hard questions we need to consider, and to gather insights from world-leading experts across diverse disciplines. We asked questions such as: what are the present social and economic issues raised by the rapid deployment of AI, and how can we build a deeper understanding of AI in the contemporary moment that will help us create a fair and equitable future?
To focus and ground the discussion, AI Now looked at AI in relation to four key themes: Healthcare, Labor, Inequality, and Ethics.