At the Speed of Irrelevance

CHAPTER 5The Great Deception of the 2016 RFI

IN AUGUST OF 2018, the Trump administration directed the Select Committee on AI to refresh the previously developed 2016 National AI R&D Strategic Plan. A Request for Information (RFI) was issued to solicit public input. The result was the identification of eight strategic priorities—of which seven were the continuation of the 2016 plan. The overwhelming anchoring of the plan in the 2016 plan (seven out of eight strategies) shows that today's American AI plan is essentially the 2016 plan—which was developed during the Obama administration.

Apparently OSTP was not just pushing President Trump to support its agenda, it was also making sure that President Trump did not find out the AI-related activities led by his predecessor. Without that important information, President Trump can have many “first-ever” statements about his AI accomplishments. For example, the OSTP February 2020 report titled “American Artificial Intelligence Initiative: Year One Annual Report,” says the following about President Trump being the first:

President Trump made history when he became the first president to name artificial intelligence as an Administration R&D priority in 2017—and since then, America has never looked back. (Trump 2020)

However, the same office in 2016, stated the following about the Obama White House:

On May 3, 2016, the White House announced a series of actions to spur public dialogue on AI, to identify challenge and opportunities related ...