There is an inordinate amount of hype and fear around artificial intelligence these days, as a chorus of scholars, luminaries, media, and politicians nervously project that it could soon take our jobs and subjugate or even kills us off. Others are just as fanciful in hoping it is on the verge of solving all our problems. But the truth is AI isn’t nearly as advanced as most people imagine. What is the practical reality of AI today, and how should government approach AI policy to maximize its potential? To parse the hype, the hope, and the path forward for AI, Rob and Jackie sat down recently with Pedro Domingos, emeritus professor of computer science at the University of Washington and author of The Master Algorithm.

Mentioned:

• Pedro Domingos, The Master Algorithm: How the Quest for the Ultimate Learning Machine Will Remake Our World (Basic Books, 2015).
• Robert D. Atkinson, “The 2015 ITIF Luddite Award Nominees: The Worst of the Year’s Worst Innovation Killers” (ITIF, December 2015).
• Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene (Oxford University Press, 1990).
• Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael A. Osbourne, “The Future of Employment: How Susceptible Are Jobs to Computerisation?” (University of Oxford, September 17, 2013).
• Michael McLaughlin and Daniel Castro, “The Critics Were Wrong: NIST Data Shows the Best Facial Recognition Algorithms Are Neither Racist Nor Sexist” (ITIF, January 2020).
• “The Case for Killer Robots,” ITIF Innovation Files podcast with Robert Marks, August 10, 2020.