Page 16 - Federal Computer Week, March/April 2019

Artificial Intelligence
Taking the mystery
out of AI
New tools and techniques are making it easier for agencies to embrace artificial intelligence
MANY AGENCIES ARE
still in the early phases of
exploring what artificial intelligence can do for them. While still
in its earliest stages, many recognize AI’s ability to fuel innovation and mission optimization. In a recent Deloitte survey, 63 percent of public-sector respondents said they believe AI will have some impact on their workforces by 2020.
Accordingly, agencies are beginning to identify ways the technology can help them achieve their missions. For example, the Defense Information Systems Agency plans
Dave Egts
Chief Technologist for the North American Public Sector, Red Hat
technology without needing to write, or deeply understand, the underlying code.
Indeed, people already use AI-powered tools every day, though they might not realize it. In the consumer world, AI is
at the core of digital assistants such as Amazon’s Alexa, Google Home and Apple’s Siri. In the enterprise, predictive analytics tools such as Red Hat Insights can help
IT staff avoid problems and unplanned downtime by identifying and remediating threats to security, performance, availability and stability. All those tools continuously and automatically deliver better results as more customers use them.
AI is also having an impact on high- performance computing. Previously, HPC advances were directly proportional to advances in computing horsepower and scalability. Now, AI models can be trained to identify patterns based on what they’ve seen in the past and make inferences
to solve problems without the need for exhaustive computation.
Built-in flexibility and the freedom to experiment
AI adoption can have a significant impact on how agency employees do their jobs. Leaders can help prepare their teams to handle those changes by:
• Showing them that AI is approachable.
In addition to new, more intuitive tools, there are many low- and no-cost AI courses and tutorials that make the technology easy to understand.
• Using AI with purpose. Agencies should identify a low-risk, high-impact, business-driven problem and determine whether AI could help solve it. And they
to pilot an AI platform that would facilitate the security clearance process, and the Army is exploring the use of AI in missile defense and weapons systems.
More powerful, accessible tools
Those discussions are becoming more widespread as AI, once largely the
domain of researchers and academics who specialized in AI, becomes more accessible. Purpose-built AI toolkits — such as TensorFlow, a flexible open-source software library for high-performance computation — enable non-AI specialists to use the
davooda/Shutterstock/FCW Staff
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