Likening Trump’s AI mission to the Manhattan Project is sadly mistaken

US President Donald Trump last month signed an executive order for the “Genesis Mission”, a national campaign to use artificial intelligence (AI) to boost scientific breakthroughs. In the opening section, the mission is explicitly described as “comparable in urgency and ambition to the Manhattan Project”. The comparison is compelling, but also misleading. At first glance, the order evokes the image of America in the 1940s, muscular and confident, mobilising the whole nation to end World War II....