Technology companies are funding some of the most life changing ideas, that years from now could completely alter our everyday lives. Cars, rockets, voice assistants, drones, augmented and virtual reality devices, as well as every variation of artificial intelligence you can think of, are all in a quest to build a better future.
We are faced with a complication however, as the government’s appetite for funding these new technologies is deteriorating. Leaving the tech industry’s huge investments in A.I. too unbalanced by the level of investment from the government to succeed as well as it could. Unless the government vastly increases how much it spends on research into such technologies, it is the technology giants who will be responsible for building our futures rather than the government.
With Google, Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft spending heavily on an artificially intelligent future, we can already begin to see the impact it is having on our society. From self-driving cars saving thousands of lives a year, to computerised methods for diagnosing and treating diseases being used to improve our health and cut the cost of care.
One reason that the internet has been so successful is due to its government funding, which has made it open and accessible to everyone. Without this funding, it may have only been useful for certain tasks instead of the broad-based engine that it is today.
Many in the tech industry agree with the need for greater federal funding, and that without it we could be at risk of losing a vast amount of technological opportunities.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/17/technology/personaltech/google-not-the-government-is-building-the-future.html?_r=1Follow us for more updates