Tech Industry Needs to Equip US With AI ‘Skill Sets,’ Says CTA Policy Point Man

The consumer tech industry needs to find ways to be sure “the population is equipped to take advantage of the jobs the technology is going to create,” said Hayes. “That is the path forward, not, what do we do to stop AI from progressing? Or what can we do to stop AI from making some jobs obsolete? Frankly, that’s the wrong narrative.”

Jobs displacement “is going to happen whenever you have a new disruptive technology” like AI, said Hayes. AI is "going to change the nature of the way that people work," he said. "What we as an industry can do and are already doing is to make sure that people are equipped to take advantage of this opportunity.” Apple, IBM and Microsoft are “actively partnering with community colleges to develop curriculums specific to the skill sets that those companies need,” he said. That's a winning proposition for all involved because tech companies can't find the talent to fill the jobs they need to fill and job applicants don't have the skills to qualify for those posts, he said. Working with universities to nurture the future workforce is "a “model that we need to scale to a much greater degree,” he said.

AI public policy is “brand-new to everybody,” said Hayes. CTA is in “a very unique position to be at the forefront of artificial-intelligence policy” because it represents 2,200 consumer tech companies, including “all the major players” in the AI space, he said. CTA will work on drafting “concrete policy initiatives” on AI through a recently launched working group, he said. “We’ll be working on setting AI policy principles. We’ll be working on defining AI, making sure that we are in a position to lead policy discussions on Capitol Hill for a pro-AI, pro-growth narrative around the technology that also acknowledges the challenges.”

HR-5356 introduced in March by Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., that would create an independent national security commission on AI is “a really good idea,” said Hayes. AI can make “a life-or-death difference when we’re talking about dealing with emerging threats,” he said. “We want to make sure that any efforts to lead in AI in the national security space are done right and don’t accidentally bleed over into the civilian space,” he said. “We can envision a scenario in which you may inadvertently task a commission based on national security to develop standards, to develop best practices, possibly even guidelines around data usage for AI that could then be default-adopted in the consumer space, and might not be a very good fit for that.”

One of the tasks of CTA’s AI working group will be to “make sure our companies are comfortable in any sort of delineation” between AI’s national security and consumer deployments, said Hayes. “We would want to confirm,” for example, that if there were to emerge a national-security “proposition” for AI “data access,” that it “reasonably comports with consumer-privacy expectations,” he said.

CTA members worry any AI “definitions” the working group comes up with would become “too rigid to capture so many different hypothetical developments of AI technology in the near future,” said Hayes. “That as a sticking point is something that we collectively can solve.” If the CTA membership “can create standards on what narrow AI means in a way that that definition is flexible,” the association can then “work with lawmakers to make sure that we have legislation that’s flexible to capture at least what the near-term future of AI might be,” he said.

CTA Forum Notebook

CTA reached an agreement with Xertia to coordinate work on standards for consumer healthcare devices, said Brian Markwalter, CTA senior vice president-research and standards, Wednesday. Xertia is a consortium formed in 2016 by the American Medical Association, American Heart Association, Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society and DHX Group to “advance the body of knowledge around clinical content, usability, privacy and security, interoperability and evidence of efficacy” of healthcare apps. CTA is “cooperating” with Xertia “to bring about mobile health solutions and guidelines,” he said. Prevalent throughout the conference were discussions about “the importance of delivering accuracy, transparency, privacy, security, regulatory compliance, especially good user interfaces,” in consumer healthcare devices, he said. “So we’re going to cooperate with Xertia on that front,” he said. Markwalter also said CTA will begin making its standards available for free through a member login process.

Fitbit’s “security and privacy are obviously of utmost importance to us,” Amy McDonough, chief operating officer of Fitbit Health Solutions, told a Wednesday workshop on the medical applications of future wearable tech products. “They’re paramount in terms of our value proposition to the consumers,” said McDonough in reply to an audience question about why his healthcare data can’t just stay on the devices he owns and not be beamed to the cloud, as Fitbit does with the data collected on devices such as its newly introduced Versa smartwatch. Fitbit is in compliance with the privacy and security provisions of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act and just announced a partnership with Google (see 1804300010) under which Fitbit data will be moved to the Google Cloud for Healthcare, which also complies with HIPPA “safeguards as well,” she said. If individuals choose to share their health data with their employers, doctors or other parts of their “care team,” the cloud “enables you to do that,” and “so we think that’s an important part of managing a long-term condition,” she said.

San Francisco data startup Spire, which specializes in respiration tracking, is weeks away from shipping sensor “tags” that one sticks on his or her clothes and forgets about, said CEO Jonathan Palley. Spire “is very focused on how we can make the device disappear,” he said. Each tag is powered by a battery that lasts for about a year and a half and can withstand the washer and dryer, he said. “We sell them in packs, so once you have this on your clothes, you simply do not have to ever think about the device again. You’re getting this great data with absolutely no user or patient intervention.” People “don’t want to wake up in the morning and think about the fact that they are sick,” said Palley. “What they will do is put on their clothes."