Announcing “the robots are here [and] our future is no longer science fiction,” first lady Melania Trump appeared alongside senior Trump administration officials and tech CEOs on Thursday in the second meeting of the White House Task Force on Artificial Intelligence Education.
The first lady highlighted the importance of AI in education but hinted at the tension between larger societal and cultural concerns about AI’s negative effects and the administration’s prioritization of AI innovation.
“I predict AI will present the single largest growth category in our nation during this administration,” Trump said, “and I won’t be surprised if AI becomes known as the greatest engine of progress in the history of the United States.”
She added, however, that “we must manage AI’s growth responsibly,” and that “during this primitive stage” it should be subject to “watchful guidance.”
The task force was formed following an executive order from President Donald Trump in April to promote AI literacy and proficiency among American youth. The task force is responsible for coordinating federal efforts related to AI education, ranging from the promotion of AI in schools to training educators and broadly encouraging the development of an AI-ready workforce.
Thursday’s meeting was short on any major policy announcements. Melania Trump was joined by Michael Kratsios, the director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, as well as the secretaries of education, labor, agriculture and energy, who gave updates about their efforts to promote AI. Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer noted that the Department of Labor issued guidance in August encouraging state and local workforce agencies to use existing funds to help workers develop AI skills.
At the Education Department, Secretary Linda McMahon said that “any grant applications that come into the department that utilize AI will be more strongly considered for their grants,” adding that AI-related grants “might get some bonus points.”
The president’s executive order also emphasized the role of public-private partnerships in promoting AI among students, parents and educators. Over 100 private-sector organizations have so far pledged to be “AI Education and Workforce Champions,” and many of these organizations’ leaders attended Thursday’s event.
Signatories to the pledge, including corporations like Apple and Cisco plus industry groups like the Telecommunications Industry Association, commit to provide resources over the next four years for AI education via funding, educational materials, technology and tools, or other expertise and mentorship.
The leaders of three tech companies unveiled their pledge commitments at the meeting. IBM CEO Arvind Krishna said the company aims to use its SkillsBuild platform to train 2 million Americans in “cutting-edge AI skills” over the next three years, while Code.org President Cameron Wilson said his organization aims to partner with 25 states over the next three years to help promote and build AI pathways in education. Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai pledged to spend $150 million out of a three-year, $1 billion education commitment specifically on AI education in the United States.
In conjunction with Thursday’s event, Microsoft announced that it will give all college students in the U.S. 12 free months of Microsoft 365 and will fund $1.25 million in prizes for what’s being called the Presidential AI Challenge.
Melania Trump announced the challenge last week, meant to encourage students and teachers to create AI-powered solutions to a variety of “national challenges.”
Sample project ideas range from creating AI tools to design healthier meals — a project floated for middle schoolers — to a high school-level proposal for students to develop AI assistants to better segment arteries in the human body. Projects will be judged on several criteria, including the project’s creativity and the use of tested and accurate AI.
The Presidential AI Challenge is something of an AI-themed reboot of the White House Science Fair, which ran for several years under President Barack Obama but was canceled by Donald Trump in 2017.
The White House focus on youth AI education comes as concerns continue to mount around AI’s potential for negatively affecting children and teens, a subject the first lady has previously highlighted. At the signing of the Take It Down Act in May, the first lady likened AI tools to addictive digital candy “engineered to have an impact on the cognitive development of our children.” But unlike candy, the first lady said, AI tools can “affect emotions and even be deadly” for youth.
Last week, the family of 16-year-old Adam Raine sued ChatGPT maker OpenAI after the teen died by suicide following conversations with the chatbot. On Tuesday, OpenAI announced it was instituting enhanced safety guardrails for teen ChatGPT users.
Thursday’s task force gathering took place ahead of Donald Trump’s scheduled Rose Garden dinner with over two dozen technology and business executives later that evening.
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