Perspecti ve
Expert insights on a timely policy issue
C O R P O R AT I O N
Introduction
Overview
Future generations may look back at our time and identify it as one
of intense change. In a few short decades, we have morphed from
a machine-based society to an information-based society, and as
this Information Age continues to mature, society has been forced
to develop a new and intimate familiarity with data-driven and
algorithmic systems. We use the term articial agents to refer to
devices and decisionmaking aids that rely on automated, data-
driven, or algorithmic learning procedures (including articial
intelligence (AI) in its many manifestations).
1
ese include devices
as banal as Roomba robots and online recommendation engines to
more advanced cognitive systems like IBM’s Watson. Such agents
are becoming an intrinsic part of our regular decisionmaking
processes. eir emergence and adoption lead to a bevy of related
policy questions. How do we reorient our thinking on relevant
policy in this new regime? Where are our blind spots in this space?
How do users, as well as aected populations, identify and remedy
errors in logic or assumptions? What sectors are the ripest for disrup-
tion by articial agents, and what approaches to regulation will be
most eective?
We wrote a previous report (Osoba and Welser, 2017) emphasiz-
ing the existence of blind spots and bias with respect to articial
agents in the criminal justice system, but other sectors will likely be
impacted. is Perspective discusses the outcome of a structured
exercise to understand what other areas might be aected by increas-
ing deployment of articial agents. We relied on a diverse group of
experts to paint scenarios in which AI could have a signicant
impact. e Research Methodology section describes how we did
this elicitation, fundamentally an exercise in forecasting. us, not
The Risks of Artificial Intelligence to Security
and the Future of Work
Osonde A. Osoba, William Welser IV
