The lessons that AI should take from the 1950’s Highway Act—and the disastrous pitfalls to avoid

Supplying increasingly more energy to power AI isn’t the answer.

In 1956, the U.S. Congress introduced the Federal Aid Highway Act, the largest public works project in American history to that point. It called for the construction of 41,000 miles of the Interstate Highway System, with the federal government paying 90% of the costs. “Together, the united forces of our communication and transportation systems are dynamic elements in the very name we bear—United States,” said President Dwight Eisenhower. “Without them, we would be a mere alliance of many separate parts.”