US President Issues Executive Order on Artificial Intelligence

President Donald Trump has issued an Executive Order launching the American Artificial Intelligence (AI) Initiative.  The Initiative will be coordinated through the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence (Select Committee).  Actions will be implemented by agencies that conduct foundational AI R&D, develop and deploy applications of AI technologies, provide educational grants, and regulate and provide guidance for applications of AI technologies, as determined by the co-chairs of the NSTC Select Committee (implementing agencies).

Actions to be implemented include:

• Heads of AI R&D agencies will need to budget an amount for AI R&D according to the Order and “consider AI as an agency R&D priority.”  Accordingly, the heads of those agencies must take this priority into account when developing budget proposals and planning for the use of funds in Fiscal Year 2020 and in future years. 
• The Order directs heads of all agencies to review their Federal data and models to identify opportunities to increase access and use by the greater non-Federal AI research community. 
• It also directs the Secretaries of Defense, Commerce, Health and Human Services, and Energy, the Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and the Director of the National Science Foundation to “prioritize the allocation of high-performance computing resources for AI-related applications.” 
• Within 180 days of the date of the Order, the Select Committee, in coordination with the General Services Administration (GSA), must “submit a report to the President making recommendations on better enabling the use of cloud computing resources for federally funded AI R&D.”
• AI is now to be considered a priority area within existing Federal fellowships and service programs by the implementing agencies. Within 90 days of the date of the Order, the Select Committee must provide recommendations to the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) Committee on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) Education regarding AI-related educational and workforce development considerations that focus on American citizens. 

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The Regulatory Mix Today: US President Issues Executive Order on Artificial Intelligence, FCC Releases Procedure for Antenna Ownership, NTIA Partners with Eight States to Improve Broadband Map

FCC Releases Procedure for Antenna Ownership

The FCC released a Public Notice  that it will revise its Antenna Structure Registration System (ASR) to put into place a new process for reporting changes in ownership of towers and other structures registered in the system.  Related changes will be made to FCC Form 854, Antenna Structure Registration, on the same date. To implement these changes, the ASR online system will be unavailable as of 6:00 a.m. until approximately 10:00 a.m. on February 14, 2019.

Some of the changes to the ASR when it comes back online are:

• To increase the security of the ASR system and reduce the risk of unauthorized changes being made, going forward, both the current owner and the new owner of a structure will be required to approve any change in ownership registration.
• Both the assignee’s signature (Items 52-55) and the assignor’s signature (Items 56-59) will be required when making an Ownership Change (OC) by submitting a paper FCC Form 854.

NTIA Partners with Eight States to Improve Broadband Map

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) announced that it is working with eight states to expand update the national broadband availability map.  The eight states – California, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, and West Virginia – will contribute data and other inputs to the map.

“In order to ensure that all Americans have access to broadband, we need a more precise picture of the current services and infrastructure that are available,” said David Redl, Assistant Secretary for Communications and Information and NTIA Administrator. “NTIA’s work on an updated map, in partnership with these initial states, will help policymakers around the country make better decisions as they devise broadband expansion plans.”

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The Regulatory Mix, Inteserra’s blog of telecom related regulatory activities, is a snapshot of PUC, FCC, legislative, and occasionally court issues that our regulatory monitoring team uncovers each day. Depending on their significance, some items may be the subject of an Inteserra Briefing.

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