Data Privacy and AI Ethics Stepped to the Fore in 2018

Data privacy took center stage in 2018. The European Union's General Data Protection Regulation went into effect, numerous Silicon Valley executives testified before Congress following Facebook's fall from grace and the tech race between China and the United States kicked into full gear. As artificial intelligence and the data sets that ground it become more and more ubiquitous, countries and regions will work to define standards and ethics surrounding not only personal data privacy but other uses of data and artificial intelligence as well. Much like access to raw materials before it, the acquisition and use of data have become a part of national strategy.