Artificial intelligence that makes news headlines, such as ChatGPT, typically runs in well-maintained data centers with an abundant supply of compute and power. However, these resources are more limited on many systems in the real world, such as drones, satellites, or ground vehicles. As a result, the AI that can run onboard these devices will often be inferior to state of the art models. That can affect their usability and the need for additional safeguards in high-risk contexts. This issue brief contextualizes these challenges and provides policymakers with recommendations on how to engage with these technologies.

By combining a versatile and frequently updated bibliometrics tool — the CSET Map of Science — with more hands-on analyses of technical developments, this brief outlines a methodology for measuring the publication growth of AI-related topics, where that growth is occurring, what organizations and individuals are involved, and when technical improvements in performance occur.