The common and recurring view of the latest breakthroughs in artificial intelligence (AI) research is that sentient and intelligent machines are just on the horizon. Machines understand verbal commands, distinguish pictures, drive cars, and play games better than we do. How much longer can it be before they walk among us?

A recent White House report on AI takes an appropriately skeptical view of that dream. It says the next 20 years likely won’t see machines “exhibit broadly applicable intelligence comparable to or exceeding that of humans,” though it does go on to say that in the coming years, “machines will reach and exceed human performance on more and more tasks.” But, the assumptions about how those capabilities will develop, missed some important points.

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