Measurement in AI Policy: Opportunities and Challenges

Spending Issues

Government spending on AI is fraught with complexities, as highlighted by Raymond Perrault. He explains that defining what constitutes AI spending is challenging, given the overlap with other fields like high-performance computing. This ambiguity can lead to issues like double counting and misallocation of funds 1.

Simply saying we spent X on AI isn't a good enough answer. You have to break it into pieces and make sure that analysts can then choose the pieces they think are relevant to their view of AI.

--- Raymond Perrault

Perrault also points out the difficulty in tracking AI-related expenditures globally, as data is often scattered across various country-specific databases 1.

   

Policy Hurdles

Policymakers face significant challenges in defining and regulating AI due to its broad and evolving nature. Jack Clark notes that AI systems are now widely deployed across various sectors, making it difficult to create a clear regulatory framework 2.

AI as a technology has an extremely broad and like liminal border with all of these other fields. So it's not an easy thing to define in that sense.

--- Jack Clark

Clark emphasizes that the interconnectedness of AI with other technologies complicates efforts to regulate it effectively 2.