Big tech has substantial influence over the direction of R&D in the US. According to the National Science Foundation and the Congressional Research Service, US business R&D spending dwarfs domestic Federal or state government spending on research and development. ...
Of course, business R&D spending focuses mainly on development–76 percent versus 14 percent on applied research and seven percent on basic research. ...
Private sector R&D is quite concentrated in a handful of companies with dominant market shares and capitalizations. From a tech perspective, these companies might claim to be on the bleeding edge of innovation, but are all protecting cash cow legacy stacks and a legacy architecture mindset. The innovations they’re promoting in any given year are the bright and shiny objects, the VR goggles, the smart watches, the cars and the rockets. Meanwhile, what could be substantive improvement in infrastructure receives a fraction of their investment. Public sector R&D hasn’t been filling in these gaps. ...
I hope the US, which has seemed to be relatively leaderless on the R&D front over the past decade, can emulate more visionary European efforts like this one from the Swiss in the near future.
See the full story here: https://www.datasciencecentral.com/rd-misdirection-and-the-circuitous-us-path-to-artificial-general-intelligence/