Page 11 - Federal Computer Week, March/April 2019

definition by August of this year and offers an interim meaning.
The act defines AI as a system that can perform without significant human oversight, learn from experience and exposure to datasets, or solve tasks with human-like perception, cognition and communication.
Meanwhile, AI continues to grow in importance. Research firm Gartner ranked AI-driven technology third among the top 10 strategic technology trends for 2019.
In 2017, both China and Russia announced plans to become global
AI leaders. Likewise, the Trump administration issued an executive order in February announcing the American AI Initiative. It emphasizes the importance of investing in research and development, sharing resources, setting governance standards, building an AI workforce, and protecting the country’s AI advantage.
Federal investment in unclassified R&D for AI has grown by more than 40 percent since 2015, according to a White House fact sheet released in 2018. In addition, the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development Program’s National AI R&D Strategic Plan, published in 2016, focuses on five strategies “to produce new AI knowledge and technologies that provide a range
of positive benefits to society, while minimizing the negative impacts.” And Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work has said AI is the “technological sauce” in DOD’s Third Offset Strategy for ensuring the U.S. military’s superiority.
Members of Congress also recognize the need for government to embrace AI. Lawmakers introduced the bipartisan Fundamentally Understanding the Usability and Realistic Evolution
of AI Act in 2017 to address U.S. competitiveness on the global stage
and alleviate concerns about privacy infringement and unemployment as AI takes on tasks traditionally performed by people.
Last year, another bipartisan bill called the Artificial Intelligence in Government Act came to the table; it seeks to provide resources and directs agencies to include AI in data-related planning.
Additionally, agencies are creating internal groups dedicated to AI. DOD established the $75 million Joint AI Center in 2018, and NITRD’s Task Force on Artificial Intelligence was formed in 2016.
Addressing the non-technical challenges
To help agencies cope with the explosion of AI efforts, guidance is emerging on how to implement the technology while being mindful of the challenges that come with it. In fact, deploying the technology might prove to be the easy part. Some
of the biggest challenges include ethical concerns such as bias and privacy. In general, experts agree that the data AI algorithms analyze should be free of personally identifiable information, and the systems should be monitored for any bias they might “learn” over time.
“The power of AI to invent algorithms far more complex than humans could create is one of its greatest assets —
and, when it comes to identifying and addressing the sources and consequences of algorithmically generated bias, one
of its greatest challenges,” wrote John Villasenor, a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, in a blog post.
Additionally, workers have concerns about the impact AI will have on their jobs. A 2017 McKinsey Global Institute report estimates that “as many as 375 million workers globally (14 percent of the global workforce) will likely need to transition to new occupational categories and learn new skills, in the event of rapid automation adoption.”
The prevailing opinion, however, is that AI augments human work. A post on the Public Interest Declassification Forum’s blog describes a recent speech by Deborah Frincke, director of research at the National Security Agency, and states that “as the government digitizes and upgrades outmoded systems to deploy AI, demand grows for more analysts to ‘say yea or nay on the AI output — the mechanical answer needs human judgment to get to the ground truth.’”
AI is often referred to as an emerging technology, but a better term might be “evolving.” As the technology’s presence and worth become more ingrained in the public sector, government officials will have to constantly push the technology — and themselves — toward greater innovation.
Artificial Intelligence
96.7M
Number of labor hours automation could save federal workers each year
40%
Rate by which
federal investment in unclassified research and development into AI has grown since 2015
$15.7T
Amount AI could contribute to the global economy by 2030
54.3% $2B
Compound annual growth rate in government cognitive and AI solutions through 2021
Amount the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is investing in AI R&D
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Sources: DARPA, Deloitte, IDC, PwC, White House