- Funding AI that adheres to the governments ideas of what is "ethical" and "responsible" despite massive public disagreement on how those terms manifest.
- Getting the largest tech firms in the world on board towards that goal.
- Explicitly imposing limits on what information models are allowed to share and train on if they want access to government capital and the capital of those aforementioned partners and all other businesses including capital markets that contract with the government.
so where does the funding actually come from? sure, NSF, great! but according to https://new.nsf.gov/news/nsf-announces-seven-new-national-ar..., "U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate" is on the list. isn't it a realistic cause for concern that these people are going to be on steering committees?
well, even setting aside DHS, IBM is also listed as a funding partner. are you saying that after IBM gives cash to the NSF, then the NSF is fair and unbiased about publishing work that might hurt IBM and help their rivals? IBM is no doubt on this list because they want to buy influence and future government contracts before they miss the boat completely, whereas google/fb/openai feel they don't need to.
i think we should follow the money, look for the conflicts of interest. it's not like you have to make research illegal to exclude players. you just gradually push them out of the loop, restrict their access to capital & research.