This chapter on handling resultant unemployment from artificial intelligence (AI) begins with the Obama report of October 2016, delves into the concerns of the G7 (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States) ministerial meeting on preparing for jobs of the future, explores the developments in AI and governmental policy in the Trump administration, and incorporates the findings of the World Economic Forum, Future of Jobs, Global Competitiveness, and Global Gender Gap Reports 2018.

When former US president Barack Obama chartered the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) subcommittee on Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence in May 2016, it was specifically created to provide technical and policy advice on topics related to AI and “to monitor the development of AI technologies across industry, research community, and the Federal Government” (Holdren and Smith, 2016). Information gathered by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) at five public workshops was also included in this same document entitled Preparing for the Future of Artificial Intelligence. A subcommittee on Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) was charged with creating a companion document National Artificial Intelligence Research and Development Strategic Plan to establish a set of objectives for federally funded AI research and development.

President Obama realized that as advances in technology opened up new markets and opportunities for some, there would also be an inherent risk that machine learning and AI would surpass human performance in specific skills and potentially could become comparable to, or exceed, human performance in skills and intelligence. This is a matter of serious concern, expressed by many in recent years. Most notably, it was brought to the public in August 2015 when Stephen Hawking, Steve Wozniak, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and hundreds of others voiced their concern about a future super-intelligence of AI in relationship to the slow biological process of humans (Ashafian, 2015; Bostrom, 2008; Goralski and Górniak-Kocikowska, 2014, 2017, 2018; Goralski and O’Connor, 2018; Sainato, 2015).

Of course, AI is here to stay and it could contribute to economic growth and be a valuable tool for governments around the world as long as the risks and challenges that AI represents are recognized by government, industry, and society. It will be important to ensure that everyone has an opportunity to help create this new AI-enhanced society and benefit from these new scientific and technological developments. This will be the ultimate challenge.