Over the years there’s always a form of technology that gains people’s attention as the “next big thing.” In the 2000’s it was the internet and in the 2010’s it was social media. Nowadays, in the 2020’s, it’s artificial intelligence. It feels like everyone is trying to get their own hands on a slice of the artificial intelligence pie, including even the president and the rest of the White House, but is this for the best?
Most prominently, there is an “AI action plan” that was unveiled by the White House a few months ago that intends to go “in accordance with President Trump’s January executive order on Removing Barriers to American Leadership in AI” and that “The Plan identifies over 90 Federal policy actions across three pillars – Accelerating Innovation, Building American AI Infrastructure, and Leading in International Diplomacy and Security.”
Essentially, the plan is an effort to develop, distribute and to spread AI within The United States and globally to make America at the forefront in the race of artificial intelligence. This could contribute to the rapid rate of growth artificial intelligence is seeing and could prove to affect many industries drastically.
There are other instances where the White House, along with other parts of the government leaning into artificial intelligence, such as the AI generated image of a deportation in the Japanese Studio Ghibli art style that was posted a few months back. While on the topic of insensitive and out of touch posts by the government as of late, while not AI, there was a video posted by Homeland Security on X where they made a Pokémon video of arresting immigrants.
Both posts feel incredibly out of touch as both Studio Ghibli and Pokémon are cultural icons that originate outside of the United States. This unintentional irony as well as the absurdity of the notion makes it incredibly worrying.
