Efforts. Do the other two Panel Members want to weigh in on this concern that we have following disasters that there are entities such as russia, that are spreading misinformation to people who are already in great pain. No. You agree that we need to put in place ways that we can counter this kind of misinformation. Right, i think the challenge of misinformation with these tools, as i mentioned in my testimony, in my written testimony with the recent reports about what was happening with facebook and other kinds of social media. We see misinformation across a wide range of topic areas. From the natural disasters to as i mentioned in my opening statement, all kinds of activities of the u. S. Government are either doing or putting in place. So i think its a growing issue. Yes, i want to note that in the case of maui the families of federal agencies were there over 25 or so agencies with over 1,000 personnel and yet there was all this, this information, this information out there saying the response was lacking. And so this kind of sowing of mistrust by i would say russia was a big actor in this instance. Once again for mr. Stevens, i just want to note that your testimony highlighted some of the ways that ai can provide breathtaking opportunities for invasions. But what are the doe labs doing to ensure that the technologies youre helping to develop are accessible to Small Businesses to help them innovate. So were very concerned about the availability of Small Businesses and students and so on to learn about ai and to use ai. I think the, this concept is often called democatization. The different labs have programs to make access to our computing facilities and a. I. Models we produce that are open, that are safe and secure available to those communities and we provide help for those communities whether its Small Businesses or whether its local governments to gain access to our systems to do that. And i think its an ongoing effort. I think more needs to be done there and i think working in concert with other agencies particularly nsf Something Like the nair initiative could actually make a big impact on that. Its something we should do together. Thank you, thank you mr. Chairman. Thank you, senator. Now we have senator mckouski. Thank you. As was e lute now we have senator murkowski. Thank you, as you eluded to. Something that has been proven to be tediously long. Do you see application fors being able to streamline some internal government processes so that we can reduce the time for instance that it might take for an agency to deliver on a permit. Or to really just kind of process any paper work, reduce workloads. How do you see this being utilized for the good . I think the short answer is absolutely. Were sitting on a treasuretrove of data from previous applicants for different permits out there. We can shrink the time lines with permitting, we can take advantage of that data and the way that allows us to do what we need to do is build out our infrastructure, so theres no doubt in my mind theres an awful lot of good that can happen in the energy space including renewables. We have a lot of Renewables Coming into place. Youve had a couple of opportunities to come to alaska. You have been ready and very well as to many of the unique aspects. Unfortunately one of the unique aspects that we have is sometimes we have a lack of data. We just havent done the mapping. We havent done the review. The analysis, your outbook is your outlook is as good as your input. Making sure that some areas some states like alaska where data is just not complete. That theyre not actually disadvantaged. Have you given some thought to that . Yes, and its been a pleasure to work with your staff. I have had the chance to come to alaska and anchorage and really help from folks in terms of what we can do from the department of energy what we can do. I think you raised a great point. A. I. Is only as good as the data you pour into it. I think its a continuing effort on our part and eager to work with you in our Arctic Energy office so that were doing everything we can, working with others in the federal department. So that it can be feeding into these a. I. Models. So its an ongoing effort. Were trying to make sure that were bringing that in to everything that we do. So its an ongoing effort and something that we will continue working on. We do need to Work Together on it. As we identify, i spend a fair amount of my time on the appropriation side with the department of interior budget. And recognize that were still directing a lot of resources, federal resources to just basic mapping. Just basic mapping. So weve got a long ways to go there. Let me ask you about, department of interior. About a month ago the i. G. For interior Mark Greenblatt noted in an oped in the Washington Post that there had been an inspection under taken by his office. And they were able to use a simple tool to crack more than 18,000 or 21 of the documents pass words. This included Senior Department officials. Hundreds belonging to employees with elevated privileges. More than 14 of these pass words were cracked within the first 90 minutes of testing. And he noted that his office was able to do this by spending less than 15,000. That should alarm all of us. Probably a general question, and i hope you answer yes, but, we understand what happens or happened at interior. Is department of energy any better prepared to ward off nefarious actors than we saw at doi. Were trying to continuously improve one of the things that makes me most nervous. And youre right to point out the benefits of a. I. But one of the Biggest Challenges and the technologies only improving and improving. Whether its Cyber Security or a number of other things. Bio hazards and proliferation as well. We need to take that head on. Thats why we need to make the investments. So we can detect these type of things and be alead of the curve as much as we can. This is something we need to be working on every day, the Energy Sector and private companies as well. This should be a wake up call. The pandoras box is open now we need to deal with it. We need to take these challenges head on. Were not there. Were not there where we need to be. Thats why we need to put together with our ideas to do what we can with the Department Energy side. Have the back and forth with you and others here in congress to make sure that we are as prepared as we possibly can. We have work to do. We have work to do. My fear is what we saw with the department of interior its just one department of 12. And where the vulnerabilities may be a little bit different but the impact can be equally. Huge. Equally disastrous. Mr. Chairman, thank you. Thank you. Now we have senator cortez masto. Thank you, in nevada we have and i want to thank also hewelett packered they Hewlett Packard, they were a part of this. I think those red team hacking weekends are just as important. Thats the manual piece of it. I think dr. Stevens you mentioned we need to continue. I know this weekend in particular that we were talking about in august in las vegas. It was designed around the White House Offices of policy blueprint for a. I. Bill of rights and its a competition that happens regularly. My question here is one that needs to continue. Two though, is also building our cyber work force. Right. Thats whats key to this as well that we need to have more engagement in building that work force. I am proud that, unlv was the host of this and will continue to be the host of these type of red team hacking exercises. But it also is part of this idea that we have to create these Academic Centers of Excellence Center of defense. Which unlv is, i think many of you are participating in those exercises. I think my question to you deputy turk is, what else should we be doing to build out that work force. How does that fit in to what we are trying to achieve with developing that cyber work force. What else do we know to be known here in congress to support it . So the work force piece is absolutely indispensable. I think theres a number of ways we need to come at it. We need to have a coherent strategy. If you want to have top talent come into government for all the functions we need to serve you have to have cutting edge facilities and capabilities right. The fact we have the largest super computer is a pretty nice atractor attracter for those wanting to do the work. The private sector is going to be able to pay more than the government. Although we have bonuses and things we can do. Having the a lab gives us more flexibility than if we were the private kind of sense. Professor stevens can talk about using those partnerships. Argo labs has a partnership with chicago, cutting Edge University there. That helps in important ways to try to channel as much folks as we can into this sector. I think theres no way we have a successful a. I. Strategy as a country unless we have the work force and pipeline for the work force making sure we have that capability not just in the private sector, incredibly important but in the government for all the functions that we need to have here. And as were building out that work force, im going to ask Hewlett Packard if you can, they have a future work academy for community and technical colleges and theyre involved with nearly, i want to say 100 institutions and over 5,000 students. The infrastructure is correct. Absolutely. I want to say the years that weve had, that really is the best practice once you have the center with the compute capability but you bring together those domain experts that are local to that institution. You know you bring the universities that are local there as well. And it really does allow you to develop that local work force and as we think about a. I. And needing more and more of that expertise. Its a great best practice to again help develop that work force locally. And just kind of grow and innovate together. This is the opportunity and maybe dr. Steven i want to talk to you. Its great to overlay a frame work. And develop principles in that frame work. This is an opportunity as we are building out that cyber work force to grow those values and principals around a. I. Is that the goal as we develop this curriculum. Yeah, absolutely. As a. I. Becomes more powerful has already been mentioned, it does two things. For somebody who knows how, knows something it empowers them to do more. Whether thats somebody whos defending our system from a Cyber Security stand point. It allows them to be more powerful. To address more systems, to be more powerful. But it also empowers the other side to be more aggressive on hold up they might attack systems. We need to of course win those battles and we have to create a community and a new way of thinking. A. I. Enabled a. I. Strategy. Thats something we want to start teaching. I think we have an opportunity to bring more people into the work force with this by attaching it to a. I. Agenda. Thank you, mrs. Puglisi. It really what does it take to have that technically proficient that doesnt really need a degree or advanced degree. I would venture to say thats really important to start and begin that at the k through 12 level. And really lay that ground work because thats whats really going to take to compete. That appears to be happening. With the different competition and whether its the federal government or private sector thats the focus, correct. Correct. And theyve done a lot of work with the importance of competitions as well as looking at the demographic of that work force so that we make sure we have that. Thank you. If we could, we have those two votes 1145. We have to keep our questions. I know we went to several five minutes, if you need a little longer fine. If you can stay closer to five, that would be great. Senator holly. Mr. Turk, since i had you before me last time we talked. We talked about the radio active contamination that the federal government has delivered to the st. Louis and st. Charles regions of our state. In particular we talked about gena Elementary School in the greater st. Louis region which was then and is now closed by Nuclear Contamination after tests in schools. When we visited last, this was in february you told me you were having conversations about it. Im just looking at the transcript here. I asked you about the department of energy requesting additional testing. You said ive seen the letter, were talking about it. Were having conversation including with the army corp. You said again were having conversation with the army corp. I asked what you were going to do about it, you said you were working on it. Can you tell me what you have done. Theres a letter thats going to come out. The secretary and myself, the head of my legacy team, carmelo is working with the army corp. And others on this front. And on the testing side in particular, i pushed the team several times. I said what can we do. Is there something we can do on our side. And we have been working with the army corp. Were playing more of a supporting role but were happy to not only play that supporting role but push and work to be responsive. Certainly to listen to the concerns that you have expressed. Its a horrific situation. Im a parent, if this were happening at their schools i would be nervous. If it was a school close by, i would be nervous as well. Thank you for all your focus on this very important issue. When you say youre happy to do it. Are you doing it to do the additional testing . We are having active conversations with the army corp. Thats what you said in february. Its because its under foos wrap to do. We are having conversations about what more they are doing right now and they are doing more right now. I will let them talk to you about other testing. Im aware of what theyre doing. Listen, let me tell you what the situation is. Just a few days ago, the army corp. Reported they removed 301 truckloads, 301 truckloads of radio active dirt from the bank of the creek thats right near the Elementary School. Now this comes after they said for months there was no contamination any where near the Elementary School. Thats what they said. Thats what they said to the community, to parents and the school district. They said they werent going to do any more testing, it was your responsible to do more testing. You said no its not its their responsibility. So currently nobody is doing anything more additionally. This isnt just a few months mr. Turk. This is 70 years. Since 1949. 1949. There has been contamination, radio active contamination in water, in the soil, all over the st. Louis region. Thats a heck of a long time. And for 70 years what we now know we discovered even since you and i talked last, because of the efforts of st. Louis residents that got foya materials that show the federal government knew from the 50s and 60s forward that there was significant radio active contamination and they did nothing about it and they systematically lied to the people of st. Louis. They said no its okay, play in the creek its fine. Theres nothing we can do here. Its the same old story over and over. I dont want to hear about conversations i want to hear about action. I want that school reopened. Now tell me about the well and spring site which another one of these Nuclear Contamination sites. You have total ownership of that. When is it going to be totally remediated. The response we got you tells the history. I know the history. Tell me how it will be remediated. We have precursor agencies that are responsible for the kinds of time periods youre talking about and we lay that history out just from our records. But happy to go into any level of detail of what the government did, 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago based on our record along those lines. Were very focused on the creek. Ive got a map here right in front of me looking at all the schools and others in the vicinity of the water. When is the well and spring site which is squarely under your legislation. Under your administration. Were getting to that. You didnt think i was going ask about that. You were before me in february and said ive had a lot of conversations, ill get back to you. Now youre saying, im going to have a bunch of conversations, ill get back to you. I can get you that information today. Good, today will be good. I will get it back to you today. Ill hold it to you, im glad were in an open forum. Lets get that done and lets get a date fixed of the remediation of well and springs. When people are saying, theres a remediation. And for those of you saying, boy he was talking about an Elementary School before and now theres another site. Yes theres multiple sites and theres nothing being done about it. I recently submitted a request that would provide compensation to the victims of this Nuclear Contamination. I am delighted to say it passed the senate and as ive looked across here, just about every person on that side, voted for it. I thank each of you. Senator lou and i worked on it. The president , President Biden has said he thinks it is vitally important to get these folks compensated for what happened to them. Do you agree with that . Do you support our legislation to compensate the victims in st. Louis and elsewhere of Nuclear Contamination and radio active waste. I certainly support the intent behind the legislation. I cant speak for them or the administration. You will not agree with the president . I will always agree with the president. Do you support the legislation. Senator, can we hold. To compensate the victims. I will leave it to the president to talk about Administration Policy on this. If you can go to the second round. Let everybody get their first round and well come back okay. Thank you. Thank you mr. Chairman, a tool that is a detection system it was used to help ukraine and some of the maui aftermath. Others in the institute for maui environment have shown how they have helped in enforcement and surveys of our land for conversation purposes. So we need to invest i believe in more invasion. And thats why we obviously support ive of what happened with chips and science and now a. I. For our competitiveness. We cannot slow down with a. I. As it comes to our competitiveness internationally. So our National Labs have assisted us on u. S. Department of energy interNational Labs are essential to our leadership in Artificial Intelligence. So i wanted to ask our panelist, you spoke about the need for u. S. Leadership in this issue. Deputy secretary turk. How can we get working together with these tool assessments in determining what a true risk assessment. So theyre identified. What do we need to do to help build a work force particularly in scaling the work force for a. I. And either one dr. Stevens or mr. Turk. Either one of you want to start. It doesnt matter. Go ahead professor. And i will start bat clean up. We were having good conversations with mist about partnering in how to take the assets of d. O. E. And connect them to the analytical and contractual. Theyre participating in working groups across the laboratory on how we will do risk assessment. Terms of the work force, i think the young people are hungry to work on ai. You dont have to, encourage them. All you have to do is say, here is an opportunity and they are there. I mean our courses, any course at any Major University for a. I. Is going to be overprescribed. What we have to do is provide resources that any student in the u. S. That wants to make a meaningful contribution to a. I. In the National Interest has an opportunity ton be opportunity to go to school, to go to graduate school, into internships. Do we support students and student internships. Can do it in a much larger number to other agencies as well. We immediate to coordinate a National Strategy to coordinate an a. I. Work force and we need leadership to coordinate that. Mr. Turk. Just two things to add. Boy what a gem we have when it comes to a. I. And the Pacific Northwest national lab. Whether its some a. I. In a drought study or with development. Theres example after example coming out of that lab of course work ing with our labs. I think our Interagency Partnership here is going to be key. Professor stevens outlined the frame work along those time lines. Its noaa and agency after agency that we have good partnerships with. Because we have the exo computing, data and other facilities that you not only with your role in this committee, has been working for so many years to make sure we have these capabilities that can help work with partners throughout the agency. We need to leverage that. We need to take full advantage of that. Do you agree with dr. Stevens about the work issue. Completely agree. Asking questions about this. We all need to focus on the work force. I know ive talked to a number of folks. They want to work on a. I. And they also want to work private sector is great and we need talent in the private sector. But they also want to talk on the government and take on these challenges as well. We need to make it attractive to them in all sorts of way so we can compete. Senator, thank you mr. Chair. You know that china is working very diligently to copy and take a lot of capabilities and research that is being developed at our National Laboratories. How much in your opinion how much have they taken or copied and are the National Labs really able to protect themselves. Not only in terms of the information they had but also as they hire people. Dont they have to be very careful who they hire and how they hire and so forth so that they know that, that information is going from employees to china or are there other actors that you know have adverse interest to our country . Well thanks for the question. And the answer is, we need to be very aware. And we need to have a layered strategy to deal with these security challenges. If they worked in a foreign, you cant work on a department of energy lab. We have specific screenings in place. To make sure that were taking care of those sensitive technologies in particular. And then third weve also got Counter Intelligence experts in our field office to cover all of our National Categories looking into any allegations and making sure were running down all leads along those lines. But, we want to attract top talent in our u. S. National labs. We want to have that expertise coming and we benefit from that. Public and the private sector. Many of those under a. I. Phd who come and work in our labs and get their phds here stay. But we have to have eyes wide open so we can get it right and update it over time too. You went right into my next question. How about people get recruited away because they have all that incredible knowledge. What if they get recruited to a rogue actor or china or somebody who is trying to get information that way. Theyre just hiring them away from you. Its not just happening with chinese nationals. Theres other countries being recruited also. So we have to be eyes wide open on the front end if theres a particular risk of an individual that we think could take some of their experience. They learn in a national lab and take it back to china or other countries that need a challenge in the world. We have to have restrictions and those kinds of screens in place along those lines. We have to balance those benefits we get with the talents with the risks were going to have from some folks deciding they want to go work elsewhere. They want to take what they learn and take it elsewhere. So we just have to be very vigilant and take a layered approach. Weve empowered a group of experts to make sure were continuously improving our risk and how we do things. Its a real challenge. A real challenge. You need the talent you have to screen it in the front end and make sure you dont lose it in the back end. Incredibly difficult. Its incredibly difficult. In a similar way but a little different. I want to ask both mrs. Puglisi and dr. Stevens, what about people just flat out copy. You develop some great a. I. Product, whatever. How about somebody taking it and copying it. Look at what other countries are doing with drones. Theyre just copying our technology. They may be inferior but theyre just copying it and in many respects how do you prevent rogue actors from doing that kind of thing. Or can you . Its a very difficult i mean china has made a living of copying and stealing our stuff. I want to have a couple of comments on your question. Because i think its important. Well with the provision. The chairman is gone so yeah, go crazy. Go wild. Were going rogue. Im sitting in for the chairman. Oh, okay. Take it all back. Fellow governor. We have to mind our ps and qs. Its very much a challenge. And but, its the tech no technological know how, i think. The Mitigation Strategy is focused on things. Its the technological know how of how do you actually do things. How do i copy things thats why our talent is so important. I would venture to say that our system really isnt set up for this particular challenge that we have today. Were pretty much, were set up to look for intelligence officers. We look for a direct military in use. And we have very narrow laws around economic espionage which we could discuss and amass for a long time. But whats being targeted, i think earlier and earlier in the Development Cycle that are beyond most of our Mitigation Strategy. That is going to be an ongoing challenge if we think about how do we find ways that we still enhance and keep and develop that work which is an essential work of the labs, and at the same time finding ways to protect that. That kind of gets the work force. It gets technological know how. Because how do we then find new ways to face this challenge. I can tell its something youre working on. Youre very knowledgeable on that and you can tell youre working on that. Thank you. As far as we can tell, its been going on for 20 years. This summer, rather hot. You know its always hot in the desert. But we had unprecedented number of days in phoenix especially over 110 degrees. And, you know weve had wildfires unprecedented wildfires not only in arizona, but in other parts of the country and in canada. These fires have had significant impacts. Impacts on communities, and its been clear to me that we have to leverage every tool at our disposal. Impacts on communities. It has been clear to me that we have to leverage every tool at our disposal to mitigate these disasters, but also look for opportunities here to promote Forest Restoration which has an impact on these. We have a big Ponderosa Pine forest in arizona, the biggest in the world. We are looking for to get this forest restored. So, obviously the potential of Artificial Intelligence cannot be overstated with its ability to analyze large data sets rather quickly and accurately to predict things. Cal fire is conducting a Pilot Program using ai to help with the Early Detection of wildfires. Kenya first elaborate on the current initiatives and advancements here using ai for wildland firefighting if there is any going on . And then secondly, a little bit about looking ahead to how the laboratory envisions collaborating with other Government Agencies and the private sector . Sure. The question earlier with the cal fire ever and our colleagues in san diego who have been involved in building some of the technology for that. Fires start with smoke, often. Ai trying to detect from cameras on mountaintops and other vantage points early examples of fire often get confused by fog or by tractors or Something Like that. There is a need to really improve the algorithms that are interpreting images maybe to upgrade the technologies with infrared imaging as well as visible light imaging and really realize that it will take some time to fully deploy ai and reengineer how the process cal fire and the teams will use it to be more efficient. Ultimately it can put more computerbased eyeballs on the territory than humans could ever begin to monitor. The longterm impact of a i and firefighting and Disaster Management in general would be huge. Ai can also synthesize and infuse information from satellites, from reports from people texting or tweeting and from the workers and firefighters on the ground into a common database that tells us exactly what is going on. I think that will be critically important as we go forward to scale up fighting efforts. Labs have been involved in trying to monitor and simulate fire in the west. In particular, los alamos has had a Large Program for many years trying to build simulations that can predict the likelihood of fires to be able to understand the amount of flammable material that is accumulating through the forest and so forth. I think all the National Laboratories are interested in helping with Disaster Management and likely their earlier comments about the work at argonne and los alamos and livermore, everyone is very interested in the problem. I think the workout is how we partner between the federal and the state and local that have responsibility for this into a structure that really advances both ai and takes a practical look. We have to try a lot of things but not everything will work. We can adjust the strategy to focus on what works. Do you know the specifics of the ai algorithm and are they trying to incorporate lightning detection into it . Obviously a lot of forest fires start with lightning and we know what lightning occurs. We can detect the lightning through the electromagnetic stuff and overlay that on the geographical maps and imagery. I am familiar with how thats. We can do a lot better than we are currently doing. Senator king thank you for spending the time here today. I think it is a fascinating discussion. I want to start with mr. Wheeler. We have a company in colorado that does training for Large Companies like walmart or chipotle that their employees want to take skillsbased classes at colleges or universities. Guild the polling of entry level engineers and coders across professions. Recently and one of their most recent polls they saw a dramatic increase, like near universal, and the level of concern expressed that ai to these beginning level engineers and it is across every industry pick every Industry Needs technology. I think, these intense Computing Resources that are used to train ai model and scale raise a lot of questions that you are already addressing. They operate a high performance, computing data center that is designed to be the worlds most energy efficient. I think when we look at some of these things, what other types of efficiency can we look at, mr. Wheeler . There is a level of anxiety that has come up in terms of the workforce. Thank you for that question, senator. I am very familiar with the facility being colorado is my home state. I think theres multiple ways to look at this. I think, as you say, all the excitement around ai. Theres a lot of people wanting to get into that as may be transitioning career, but understandably concerned with some of the risk around it. We have something that lycie internally a lot, ai is not going to replace that scientist or engineer, editor, teacher, you name it. Those same individuals, those same professionals that harness and use ai will likely replace those that dont. Thats why i think from workforce and transition, we see many people wanting to get into that as a career. They recognize the opportunity. The great thing about guild is maybe they are not taking people that historically came from a stem or education background, but with all the tools and everything that is being developed, suddenly you do not have to be the deep mathematics expert. You can be very proficient with the toolsets that are out there if you have that willingness to learn. That being said, the guardrails that are in place or how do we think about some of the risk associated with the technology. You asked about what other things can be done, you know, with that. I think it is a great example of showcasing a lot of what can be done whether it is from the energy recapture of those systems as others on the panel have stated. Just providing access to that type of infrastructure and computer is a big part of lowering the barrier to maybe some of the anxiety and being part of the solution because if you have a passion around that as with a study on how to mitigate some of the risk around this, having access enables you to develop and propose those types of solutions. Thank you for that. Ms. Puglisi, a lot of the innovations fueled by ai come from fundamental and applied research that is adopted by Small Businesses. In your testimony you highlight about how investing in Research Supports our countrys technological leadership. How will this from the chips plus science act grow our technical workforce and help the economy . Yes. I think those investments are essential. That gets lost a lot of times are the transition points. We focus on a lot of basic research or we focus on applied. I think what some of the advantages that are focused on in the chips and science is that it looks at the transition point and how do we move technology so that it best serves the public and society. So having those kinds of skills, those are very different kinds of skills than actually doing the research, but having that support across what we call the valley of death or other kinds of challenges i really think it is important to keep that spark going. Thank you. I will yield. Senator king, i will wander over and make sure that seat is covered if you will take a couple extra minutes. Thank you. I wanted to put a fine point on this. A few minutes ago i put into chatgpt the following question. Write a poem about joe manchin. This is what it came up. In Senate Chambers joe manchin and John Barrasso and sue. Joe manchin from coalfield mills six compromise and middlegrounds grace in a vides he finds his place. Barrasso a republican from wyoming planes with conservative values that deeply ingrained his vision for policy distinct and clear in the halls of congress he perseveres. Though their ideologies often diverge in the senate, they engage and discuss and merge for the common good they both aspire to serve their constituents their hearts on fire. Two senators, distinct in their view but bound by a duty to represent you. Democracies stance they play their part, joe manchin and johnny John Barrasso with determined heart. Lets not eliminate that part of ai. Think of that. In less than two seconds the data that was searched to present to put that material together, make it rhyme, and have it be some representative of our two senators. We have to realize the unbelievable power of this. That is sort of a homely example, but i think that we need to understand the radical nature of this technology. Mr. Turk, a question. One of the problems in the Energy Transition which, as you know is one of the major issues of our time, is isos timeliness of processing application for connection to the great. There is a huge backlog in virtually all of the isos in the country. Can ai contribute . It seems to me the decision about interconnection which involves capacity, reliability, safety. That strikes me as an engineering question that ai should be helpful with. I think the short answer is yes. I have been speaking to the heads of isos and trying to make sure we are doing everything we can on the interconnection. It is a big deal right now. If you cant get things connected to the grid we will not achieve our goals and get the benefits from these technologies. Right now that is one of the major bottlenecks to that transition. It is a major bottleneck. Thats exactly right. Theres a number of efforts being undertaken right now. They have put out some rules to try to make sure its not just first in, it is first ready so that we try to make sure we had taken the applications of those that are most impactful. I hope that you will take steps to use ai to radically shorten this process. I think that would be great. I wanted to highlight that there is an effort that our colleagues are working on using technology and other things to try to bring the isos together with software and ai fixes your kids a very exciting effort. I would appreciate that. The word watermarking and was used earlier. I dont want the government to say what is true or not true. Thats not the direction we want to go and its not consistent with our principles and values. On the other hand, it seems people that use information on the internet or otherwise have a right to know its source. You mentioned watermarking. What we are talking about, for me, it is labeling. This film or this article was produced with ai. That would be Important Information for people to have in assessing the validity of what they are seeing. How close are we to having that technology . Know how to do it. Its a question of getting agreement that ai companies would use a common approach and not a proprietary approach and also how we enforce or acquire it. Could congress require the platforms . That is the current approach. I think it is flawed in the sense that there will be ultimately many hundreds or thousands of generators of ai. Some will be the big Companies Like google and open ai but there will be many open models produced outside the United States and produced elsewhere that would not be bound by a u. S. Regulation. I think what we are ultimately going to have to do is validate real sources as well. We have a law that says watermark ai generated content but a broke player outside the u. S. Operating in russia or china or summer could not be bound by that and could produce a ton of material that would not have those watermarks. I think that we will have to be more nuanced or strategic in this and we will have to authenticate real content down to the source whether it is true or not is a separate issue but if it is produced by real humans the street we get tagged so you know it is real. I am out of time and do over to preside but i would really appreciate it if all of you would give some real thought to this because this is a Current Issue for us and we have a major election coming up in a little over a year. This information from ai could play a pivotal role. We need your best thinking now to the extent you can get back to this committee on these subjects would be very helpful to us. Thank you. Let me tell you. I dont need to tell you how informative and interesting this has been. I think what everybody has told you. My good friend here found something very complementary. I appreciate that very much but he could have probably found something concerning and harmful very quickly also. I think the first line of defense that im looking at and concerned about is how do we protect from altering peoples lives which is basically their compensation. Social security, medicare. How are they preventing ai from figuring out how to come through another back door or sydor or anything differently that can put them at risk and alter their lives because that is when it will be very difficult for us to put the genie back into the bottle and thats what im concerned about. Getting into investment portfolios. They are trying to do this all the time. It makes it very difficult. Its bad enough when someone gets your credit card hacked and stolen, what they have to go through to get that corrected. Can you only imagine what this could do . So this is what we are asking you with the knowledge and expertise that you have it also the challenges we will have. I know that we think about defense and armed services. We are already using ai in defensive procedures but offensively was still at the Human Element involved to make a decision do we want to strike or not. That will be very important with unbelievable farreaching results. I think we are in Uncharted Waters to a certain extent but those of you ahead of the curve can help us from falling into the deep end. So we have learned from all the good that the internet did there are a lot of people out there waiting to use it for nefarious situations and they do it everyday. With that, let me say that i appreciate you very much. I think you have done a wonderful job. I think that the support that you have from all of us trying to make sure that whatever we invest we have to invest an awful lot. We are ready to do that but we dont want to reinvent the wheel. We are all here to help, but thank you so much. Members will have until the close of business tomorrow to submit additional questions for the record. Thank you and the meeting is adjourned. If you ever miss any of c spans coverage you can find it any time. Videos of key hearings, debates, and other events feature markers that guide you to other interesting and news working highlights. They appear on the righthand side of the screen when you hit play on select videos. This makes it easy to quickly get an idea of what was debated and decided in washington. School through an vendor spend a few minutes on c span. Org. On wednesday, the epa administrator Michael Reagan testifies about the Decision Making process. You can watch this at 10 00 eastern on cspan 3. A healthy democracy does not just look like this. It looks like this. Americans can see democracy at work, where citizens are truly informed. Get informed straight from the source on cspan. Unfiltered, unbiased, word for word from the nations capitol to wherever you are because the opinion that matters the most is your own. This is what democracy looks like. Acting labor secretary julie su yielded questions about her