AI’s $60B Productivity Boost

A new report reveals that the market for AI technologies could potentially generate more than $60 billion worth of productivity improvements per year.

The Information Technology Industry Council (ITI) shared a new document that outlines AI policy principles for the tech industry, the government and public-private partnerships, and also projects how valuable AI could become in the future.

In the United States alone, the market for AI technologies that analyze unstructured data is projected to reach $40 billion by 2020. These innovations create new products and services that did not exist before. By 2025, AI technologies are expected to add between $7.1 trillion and $13.17 trillion to the global economy.

“While the potential benefits to people and society are amazing, AI researchers, subject matter experts and stakeholders should continue to spend a great deal of time working to ensure the responsible design and deployment of AI systems, including addressing safety and controllability mechanisms, use of robust and representative data, enabling greater interpretability and recognizing that solutions must be tailored to the unique risks presented by the specific context in which a particular system operates,” the report stated.

With that in mind, ITI urges collaboration among stakeholders across public and private sectors, and includes some ways in which industry and government can collaborate, including investment in AI research and development, flexible regulatory approach, equality of access and opportunity, and promotion of innovation and internet security.

Of course, with all of the concerns over hacking, ITI acknowledges that “data and cybersecurity are integral to the success of AI. We believe for AI to flourish, users must trust that their personal and sensitive data is protected and handled appropriately.”

The report goes on to recommend that governments use “strong, globally accepted and deployed cryptography and other security standards that enable trust and interoperability. We also promote voluntary information-sharing on cyberattacks or hacks to better enable consumer protection.”

In addition, the tech sector needs to continue to offer “strong security features into products and services to advance trust, including using published algorithms as our default cryptography approach, as they have the greatest trust among global stakeholders, and limiting access to encryption keys.”