Artificial Intelligence
Many Questions Remain Unanswered About Big Tech, Defense Use of AI

January 25, 2021—The need for clear guidelines facilitating the development and use of artificial intelligence continues to cause raging debates among those working in the public sector.
While private tech companies, like Google and Microsoft, have already created their own ethical guidelines, laying out how the companies will use AI software, the U.S. Department of Defense is just beginning to tackle the process of outlining procedures that detail the government’s use of AI.
Creating resources that detail how AI technology functions to assist the DoD, and other federal agencies is key in leveling the AI development gap, which persists between private companies and government entities, according to a panel of federal employees who convened for a Nextgov webinar entitled Genius Machines on Thursday.
When it comes to government use of AI, there are many questions that remain to be answered. Since the technology holds such a variety of capabilities, panelists agreed that there need to be conversations held surrounding ethical requirements, policies for specific use cases, regulations for software development, and more.
However, with the creation of the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, the DoD is making moves to centralize AI efforts across the government. Federal agencies are also focusing on incorporating these tools to detect insider threats, increase efficiency and maintain a tactical edge on the battlefield.
The JAIC works to maintain good relationships between the Pentagon and Silicon Valley, and further, to help federal agencies understand the power and responsibility that comes along with producing AI.
Alka Patel, head of AI Ethics Policy at the DoD’s JAIC, said that regardless of the use case, there must be specific assessments and considerations taken into account for all government-use of AI.
Patel maintained that a governance structure with guidelines and principles must be designed, saying there is a need for the DoD to work towards standardizing best practices and risk management assessment tools. Once these basic guidelines are built, Patel believes using AI tools will become second nature.
Pentagon leaders have been clear, if their efforts to leverage emerging technology are to show real value, the Defense Department must tap the innovation coming out of the private sector. Patel said that in order to help federal agencies design better products, the public and private sectors need to collaborate.
Through collaboration, companies are able to engage with the DoD, to ensure their technology can fulfill what the federal government requires. Creating more avenues to engage with all stakeholders is a critical point to leveraging AI to its greatest potential use.
Such engagement with acquisition partners creates a conversation between all parties to work together. Developing technologies is in the best interest of all, said Patel.
Artificial Intelligence
Sen. Bennet Urges Companies to Consider ‘Alarming’ Child Safety Risks in AI Chatbot Race
Several leading tech companies have rushed to integrate their own AI-powered applications

WASHINGTON, March 22, 2023 — Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., on Tuesday urged the companies behind generative artificial intelligence products to anticipate and mitigate the potential harms that AI-powered chatbots pose to underage users.
“The race to deploy generative AI cannot come at the expense of our children,” Bennet wrote in a letter to the heads of Google, OpenAI, Meta, Microsoft and Snap. “Responsible deployment requires clear policies and frameworks to promote safety, anticipate risk and mitigate harm.”
In response to the explosive popularity of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, several leading tech companies have rushed to integrate their own AI-powered applications. Microsoft recently released an AI-powered version of its Bing search engine, and Google has announced plans to make a conversational AI service “widely available to the public in the coming weeks.”
Social media platforms have followed suit, with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg saying the company plans to “turbocharge” its AI development the same day Snapchat launched a GPT-powered chatbot called My AI.
These chatbots have already demonstrated “alarming” interactions, Bennet wrote. In response to a researcher posing as a child, My AI gave instructions for lying to parents about an upcoming trip with a 31-year-old man and for covering up a bruise ahead of a visit from Child Protective Services.
A Snap Newsroom post announcing the chatbot acknowledged that “as with all AI-powered chatbots, My AI is prone to hallucination and can be tricked into saying just about anything.”
Bennet criticized the company for deploying My AI despite knowledge of its shortcomings, noting that 59 percent of teens aged 13 to 17 use Snapchat. “Younger users are at an earlier stage of cognitive, emotional, and intellectual development, making them more impressionable, impulsive, and less equipped to distinguish fact from fiction,” he wrote.
These concerns are compounded by an escalating youth mental health crisis, Bennet added. In 2021, more than half of teen girls reported feeling persistently sad or hopeless and one in three seriously contemplated suicide, according to a recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Against this backdrop, it is not difficult to see the risk of exposing young people to chatbots that have at times engaged in verbal abuse, encouraged deception and suggested self-harm,” the senator wrote.
Bennet’s letter comes as lawmakers from both parties are expressing growing concerns about technology’s impact on young users. Legislation aimed at safeguarding children’s online privacy has gained broad bipartisan support, and several other measures — ranging from a minimum age requirement for social media usage to a slew of regulations for tech companies — have been proposed.
Many industry experts have also called for increased AI regulation, noting that very little legislation currently governs the powerful technology.
Artificial Intelligence
Oversight Committee Members Concerned About New AI, As Witnesses Propose Some Solutions
Federal government can examine algorithms for generative AI, and coordinate with states on AI labor training.

WASHINGTON, March 14, 2023 – In response to lawmakers’ concerns over the impacts on certain artificial intelligence technologies, experts said at an oversight subcommittee hearing on Wednesday that more government regulation would be necessary to stem their negative impacts.
Relatively new machine learning technology known as generative AI, which is designed to create content on its own, has taken the world by storm. Specific applications such as the recently surfaced ChatGPT, which can write out entire novels from basic user inputs, has drawn both marvel and concern.
Such AI technology can be used to encourage cheating behaviors in academia as well as harm people through the use of deep fakes, which uses AI to superimpose a user in a video. Such AI can be used to produce “revenge pornography” to harass, silence and blackmail victims.
Aleksander Mądry, professor of Cadence Design Systems of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told the subcommittee that AI is a very fast moving technology, meaning the government needs to step in to confirm the objectives of the companies and whether the algorithms match the societal benefits and values. These generative AI technologies are often limited to their human programming and can also display biases.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Georgia, raised concerns about this type of AI replacing human jobs. Eric Schmidt, former Google CEO and now chair of the AI development initiative known as the Special Competitive Studies Project, said that if this AI can be well-directed, it can aid people in obtaining higher incomes and actually creating more jobs.
To that point, Rep. Stephen Lynch, D-Massachusetts., raised the question of how much progress the government has made or still needs in AI development.
Schmidt said governments across the country need to look at bolstering the labor force to keep up.
“I just don’t see the progress in government to reform the way of hiring and promoting technical people,” he said. “This technology is too new. You need new students, new ideas, new invention – I think that’s the fastest way.
“On the federal level, the easiest thing to do is to come up with some program that’s ministered by the state or by leading universities and getting them money so that they can build these programs.”
Schmidt urged lawmakers last year to create a digital service academy to train more young American students on AI, cybersecurity and cryptocurrency, reported Axios.
Artificial Intelligence
Congress Should Focus on Tech Regulation, Said Former Tech Industry Lobbyist
Congress should shift focus from speech debates to regulation on emerging technologies, says expert.

WASHINGTON, March 9, 2023 – Congress should focus on technology regulation, particularly for emerging technology, rather than speech debates, said Adam Conner, vice president of technology policy at American Progress at Broadband Breakfast’s Big Tech and Speech Summit Thursday.
Conner challenged the view of many in industry who assume that any change to current laws, including section 230, would only make the internet worse.
Conner, who aims to build a progressive technology policy platform and agenda, spent the past 15 years working as a Washington employee for several Silicon Valley companies, including Slack Technologies and Brigade. In 2007, Conner founded Facebook’s Washington office.
Instead, Conner argues that this mindset traps industry leaders in the assumption that the internet is currently the best it could ever be. This is a fallacy, he claims. To avoid this mindset, Conner suggests that the industry focus on regulation for new and emerging technology like artificial intelligence.
Recent AI innovations, like ChatGPT, create the most human readable AI experience ever made through text, images, and videos, Conner said. The penetration of AI will completely change the discussion about protecting free speech, he said, urging Congress to draft laws now to ensure its safe use in the United States.
Congress should start its AI regulation with privacy, anti-trust, and child safety laws, he said. Doing so will prove to American citizens that the internet can, in fact, be better than it is now and will promote future policy amendments, he said.
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