Joining us now, nate tibbitt, Senior Vice President of global government affairs. Hey, everybody. It is a genuine pleasure. I really want to think the i. T. Team for all the hard work it takes to produce another fantastic intersect event. It is clear that American Ingenuity drives us to new technological futures. And policies that promote r d and strong patent protections will assure American Companies maintain leadership. American companies will play a pivotal role in guiding the future of a high. Just as qualcomm played a pivotal role in creating Wireless Technology that fueled the digital revolution, we are now focused on democratizing the benefits the technology by putting access to a. I. In the palms of peoples hands by their connected devices. In 2023, the a. I. Discussions primarily centered around training and developing large language models. This year, the a. I. Conversation will shift towards the proliferation of generative a. I. Applications and a. I. Inference, making technology both easier to use and more useful. However, as a. I. Becomes more integrated in our daily lives, addressing responsible a. I. Becomes increasingly urgent. It is imperative that we work collaboratively to address risks and unintended consequences. Today, we are showcasing the worlds first chipset designed to resolve the complex challenges around transparency and authenticity in Digital Content across smart phones worldwide. In collaboration with our technology partner, we will soon enable devices that can add content credentials to any image output. Whether synthetic or authentic. Addressing these challenges necessitates strong collaboration between the private sector and public sectors, and really who better to guide us then administrator Ella Davidson of the National Telecom and information administration. Before we welcome him by way of introduction, lets take just a moment to applaud the administrations forward thinking investments. Notably, the b funding and the open Radio Access Network through the public wireless supplychain Innovation Fund driving american connectivity and innovation. This effort fueled a relentless cycle of innovation testing, deployment, and powering companies to leverage their R D Investments and unleash the power of market competition. Additionally, we command the work on the National Spectrum strategy which is a crucial blueprint for ensuring American Leadership in 5g advance and 60 technologies. The shift towards open deployment the shift towards the open deployment approach for 5g and beyond and the Government Support highlights the pivotal role of initiatives spearheaded by Ella Davidson in collaboration with teams in the u. S. To of commerce and across the u. S. Government. Now, with great excitement and anticipation, lets welcome david to the stage along with the ceo to share valuable insights on sharing the future of a. I. Technology. I appreciate the support from qualcomm, and, hello, again, everybody. Thank you. Alan davidson joins us as he did last year. And as he did in prior vents. I am thrilled to have you back. Welcome. I am excited to be back. It is a cold day inside and outside thank you for taking the time to talk to us. A lot on your plate. In fact, nothing on your plate is not of irrelevance. So lets start with a high. You were referenced in the executive order, and work is underway under a very tight timetable. Not given a lot of time. In fact, i think the first 90 day deadline expired on a sunday. Can you talk to us about what you have the team prioritizing and what you need from us in order to accomplish the lofty goals . Absolutely. And thank you. First of all, thanks for having me. It is great to be here. Having a former i. T. A board member in a past life, congratulations on what you have been doing. And i will say it is an exciting and interesting time to be working in this space and everyone has been hearing a lot about it already today. Responsible a. I. Innovation is going to transform our economy. It is hard to imagine a sector of the economy that would not be touched by all of this and it will bring a lot of benefits to people. That, i think, is the strong belief. We need to promote that innovation but we also know we are only going to succeed in this if we ensure that we are also addressing the serious risks that are out there. The risks that exist today. Not to speculative risks, but the risks about security, bisd, and n the systems. So you have seen, i think, with a sense of withurgency the way government is addressing this. I think we are early still in the lifecycle of all of this, but people are jumping in, i think, appropriately. You have seen the commitments we were getting from leading a. I. Companies this summer. The executive order which people talked about and now we are implementing. Very important. Very ambitious. The work we are doing internationally with the g7. We serve as the president s principal adviser on telecommunications policy. We are deeply engaged in this a. I. Policy to there are a couple of big projects. We are doing airport on a. I. Accountability and auditing that we started over a year ago. We have got a big homework assignment. I would love to tell you more about that. We are also doing a lot of work on the policy level internationally in coordination of all of this. There is a lot going on. That is great. I will give you the opportunity to talk about it if you address a rumor off the record. Right. That ntia is considering changing its name to ntai. Who is talking about a. I. These days . No. He is completely joking. I think it would require action by congress to change our name, but a guy can dream. We are doing a lot in this space. And on this issue around open model waives. Widely available model waives. Some people call it opensource a. I. It is a really hard problem and we have a homework assignment in the executive order to produce a report for the president by the end of july. So we are around the clock on what our approach to the model would be. To what these open a. I. Systems should be. There are real risks and benefits this year. There is real concern about safety. You know . If you open up models without the kind of safeguards that not built in, then what are the risks . At the same time, we know there can be benefits, too, to benefits. And we know competition can be concerned if there are only a small number of companies that control all the models. And openness can be part of all of it. I think the good news is that we have learned already that there is a sort of gradients of openness. That may provide us with a path on how to address this. Stay tuned good news is that we learned already there is a gradient of openness. Is not a binary thing. You are the principal telecom to the president. What we are going to talk about is the National Spectrum strategy. That was a comprehensive, almost overwhelming, effort to bring some direction to the future course of activity in this area. You have got i know how you have enough people to do all the work you have been assigned to do, but this is another one. Tell us where the latest area of activity is on that. This is a super interesting and important area for the country and one that doesnt always get the air time, no pun intended, sorry, not a lot of great spectrum jokes out there, that it has deserved. It is probably one of the most important resources in our nation, and also one of the most scarce resources. The demand for spectrum continue to increase. We need it for all of the connected devices we know and love. The federal government needs it for everything from aviation radars to defense missions. Satellites to monitor the climate. All that powered by spectrum. We need to do a good job of managing the scarce resources we have. The last two years we have been working on a National Spectrum strategy, which we have been overdue for in this country. Im so pleased we were able to release one at the white house this november. Thank you for joining us at that event. Thanks for the invitation. We to be there. It lays out a path for how we are going as a country to tackle this hard challenge in front of us while making sure we can feed the pipeline of spectrum needed for private sector use, and also make sure we have enough for federal initiatives. We laid out a fourpart strategy. Includes a pipeline of spectrum to study over the next couple of years. Work on new spectrum technologies, like dynamic spectrum sharing. New collaborations with the private sector. And a real attention to the workforce in the space. We need more rf engineers out there. All the kids today want to study machine learning, but there are good jobs in understanding the spectrum, and we need more people in the space. A lot of work to be done on the spectrum strategy. Of course, unfortunately, this is outside of your purview, but congress has an to move forward on a couple of issues that are relevant to ntias work, one is spectrum auctions, which many have expressed concern about auction authority, what is the reallife impact of that . What are your hopes . Again, recognizing you dont have a voice in congress, but what are your hopes for getting the issue resolved . It is kind of crazy we dont have spectrum longterm authority for the fcc. The chairwoman has spoken pretty eloquently about how important that is for their continued work in the space. If we are going to continue to have a smart spectrum strategy for this country, we need to have that authority reinstated. We are hopeful that there will be an opportunity to do that. A lot of people both sides of the aisle understand the importance. Lets talk about broadband for generally. This is another area where, somehow you have people on staff working on this issue. It is like a startup in government. I have been the chair for about two years, over one third, almost 40 of ntia is brand new since i started. We have had to a lot of this. It is fun to run a startup. It is hard to do this in government, but we have grown a lot. Lets talk about the broadband work. What is most important from your perspective with the work that is underway . It is a historic moment. We have this incredible opportunity. Weve been talking about the Digital Divide for over 25 years. The bipartisan interest structure look but we finally got resources to do something serious about it. The president has given a simple mission, connect everyone with reliable, affordable, high Speed Internet service. We are well on the way. I mean, it will be a years long project. It will take a ton of work. We have started. We have Grant Programs in flight , middle mile, 1 billion out the door, 2 billion in tribal funding, connectivity finding out the door. Now were doing Digital Equity plans with every state. Now the big money, the 42 billion state grant program, is in flight. This will your be a big year. Last year we got plans at the end of their from every state about how they would spend the money we are giving them. This year they implement those plans. All eyes turned to the states. They will start doing grantmaking. We need everybodys attention. This is an all hands on deck moment. I will say, even as we are looking ahead at money this coming, the truth is that money is being spent right now to connect people. The early programs we started implementing, like the broad brand broadband infrastructure program, we have now passed over 36,000 homes with the infrastructure we have built and funded through that. There are real people being connected right now. A lot more to come. We are not going to get tens of billions of dollars from congress to do this again, so we have got to get it right. Last question i want to ask you, because you touched on a lot of areas of activity relevant to the tech industry, some areas that you have been working on for decades at ntia, and some you have been working on this year for the first time. For industry, what do you need help with . Where are the areas, the gaps in knowledge, education, partnership, programs, inputs into all of these different areas, or perhaps areas you have not talked about that industry can be helpful and be of service to you as you endeavor to accomplish these goals . That is a great invitation. I would say that the list is long. You heard a lot about a. I. , but the truth is, it is worthy of attention right now. I think getting smarter, understanding i talked about the open model weights project. It is a big deal to figure this out. Cases of first impression. We need to be smart with industry. We have a lot going on in the old Internet Policy Issues of privacy. Im cochairing a big task force on kids safety right now. Coming up with good best practices. Were doing a big workshop out at stanford. We announced on march 13 to get Industry Input on this. That is another area. Broadband, you know, we need acp funding. That is another thing that is important out there. You heard about that earlier today. Just making sure it is all hands on deck and paying attention. We just need more, i will say, people have dual competency in government, who understand technology and can talk about the policy implications and to this crossover. We really appreciate the partnership with folks in industry, folks in nonprofits who help us understand these issues better. Thank you for your leadership in the space. Thanks to everybody here for being part of the conversation. Thank you. Talking about the intersection between the technical knowhow and policy chops, you described yourself, we are very lucky to have you. That is what we are all about. Please join me for thanking him and sharing his thoughts today. [ applause ] please welcome neuberger, Deputy Assistant tome the president and w National Security advisor, cyber and emerging technology at the National Security council, and barbara please welcome Deputy Assistant to the president and deputy National Security advisor, cyber and emerging tech at the National Security council, and president and ceo of siemens usa. [ applause ] i am so glad we are together. Actually, i am so glad that jason has given siemens the chance to be your interviewer for this last segment of the day. I love our conversations that we get to have. For those of you dont know, siemens is a company that has been working in the field of infrastructure our whole history. If the last couple decades have been about creating the internet of people, the way we entertain ourselves, the way we engage as a consumer, now the world is recognizing that we are introducing the internet of things. It is an order of magnitude larger than the internet of people. And so, the key questions of cybersecurity and the use of a. I. Are coming to infrastructure everywhere. And here you are smack dab in the middle of all that. Anne, i would love to start, i know we have questions about the executive order, but you are in a role where it would be tempting to focus solely on race, but you also focus on opportunity. Tell me about the balance you are working to achieve. Absolutely. First, it is great to be here with all of you. One of the great things about iti, thank you to our hosts, is it really connects companies and government as we map policy, because as a country, to your question, we are a leading, we are the leading innovator on the global stage. The American Economy is the largest in the world because we encourage innovation, and we really want to be a leader in, not only technology, but technology involving many fields. Barbara and i have had many conversations about cybersecurity, telecom policy, as part of that goal. To your question, when we think about the promise and peril of a. I. , i know this is the end of the day, you have had many discussions here, so i thought i would answer in the context of a few examples of where we see both. To give us a think about how we bring that together. In the area of promise and peril, to your first question on cybersecurity, two areas. The same models that can help us really analyze, help a coder analyze code to find vulnerabilities, to find holes that a malicious attacker would exploit, to improve the code and make it stronger and harder to exploit, in the hands of a malicious attacker, those same models help them find vulnerabilities that have been unpatched and not secured and to use those to build more focused malware for a particular product. That is an example of what we want to do. We want to ensure that cyber defenders use those models first. That we are improving products as we build them before we deploy them, as well as using those to find vulnerabilities in the most important products deployed across our Water Systems, power systems, to patch them first. One example. I think a second one, which always touches my heart, is my husband and i have been involved in a charity that deals with individuals with als. People with als essentially you lose the ability to communicate, lose their ability to move. Their minds are fully intact. Their bodies slowly disintegrate. There are various efforts to do , essentially take their voices and save them so that, as the individual is only communicating via blinking, that is translated to words so they can actually still communicate. Clearly, we know the downsides of voice coding. We saw in the reporting of president biden, and we have seen the risks of somebody sounding like a grandchild calling the grandparents say they are in trouble. In the hands of fraudsters, it is a real concern. To wrap up, with the promise and peril in a number of areas of a. I. The goal is to ensure that on the promise side we are moving ahead at speed while thinking from the outset how to do this responsibly to manage the risks. Fascinating. We are living in a world where that promise and peril go hand inhand. Lets pull the thread a little bit more about, in the world of infrastructure, in the past, people used to say, thanks heaven it is not connected. We recognize there are threats to infrastructure connected or not. In fact, it might be that connecting and actually using the tools available to us today could strengthen our infrastructure. Your thoughts. I could not agree more. Just about six weeks ago we dealt with the iranian government hacking connected Water Systems. Water systems that were connected to the internet. They were able to have an impact on those systems because they used a default password of 1 1 1 1. They affected Water Systems across 16 states. To your point, those systems were likely not designed to be connected to the internet, but over time it was way to download information, perhaps away for an administrator to also get his email as they do their job. Security has to look at where products are used today and ensure that we can secure them appropriately, and then i have a question for you. We have to recognize that Autonomous Devices will be connected to the internet. Think about the infrastructure that we have, the electricity infrastructure. It has components which, ideally, could health after a major flood. As people seek to bring infrastructure online, they can see which lines are down and which should be optimized for maintenance. In an ideal world, we want that infrastructure to be connected to the internet, but in a way that is secure, predictable, and in a way to ensure it is protected from malicious attackers. In line with that, siemens built out so much connected infrastructure, connected factories more broadly, how do you think about these new risks as new products are built, as well as thinking about the broader infrastructure you maintain . Actually, thank you for asking that. This is one of the most Creative Spaces anyone can work in today. Yes, siemens is an expert in all kinds of infrastructure. As you mentioned, the power grid, transportation networks, factories, buildings. There is control technology in all of those things. Frankly, people cannot even envision a connected infrastructure, call it four decades ago. The idea of the way things were designed previously was fundamentally different. Here we live today in a world where we are able to put these tools to use. We have a research and Development Department that is constantly scanning the environment. We know that the value, the value we can bring today, is bringing the real and Digital Worlds together across all of this built infrastructure. Now, since 1970, researchers have been working with technologies like artificial intelligence. Fantastic. The key question is how we apply all of these new technologies to the world we live in. We have been speaking in terms of industrial a. I. You know, instead of using general a. I. On all of the internet, we can create trusted data sets using, say, a utilities are using a manufacturers own data. Imagine a world in which you do have sensors on all of your equipment. Your producing so much information. You simply cant process it all. Now with a. I. We can. So with about 2000 a. I. Experts across the global organization, with about 1400 cyber experts likewise, working handinhand with product developers, we are constantly evolving our design processes and standards so we are actually building these things in. The concept is technology with purpose. Making sure we are using our best imagination to imagine both the upside we are trying to achieve, as well as the potential on the and intended unintended downsides. It is really interesting. When we think about the most critical Cyber Security risk as a country, what we are most concerned about are malicious countries or criminals, hacking and disrupting the water, power or pipeline systems that americans rely on every day. As individuals and as companies. Those power companies, the Water Companies are largely owned by private sector entities. Over the last, during the biden administration, we fundamentally made changes to the model of how those systems are secured while still working to keep the Close Partnership between the nations Critical Infrastructure companies and the government. We have a couple of examples of that that you and i were talking about in the green room. I want to get your thoughts. The first was, we are one of the last countries in the world to put in place a minimum cybersecurity standard for pipelines, Water Systems to prevent the kind of thing i described where a Foreign Government could hack into a water system merely by identifying and trying default passwords. What was interesting was, there were 16 systems, if i recall, that were hacked. All of those had default passwords. Additional systems that did not were not successfully hacked. It just goes to show that the basics that dont cost much money are the basic practices. Those are now mandated for some key sectors under existing safety rules. The second piece was a voluntary program called the cyber trust program. It really aims to say that americans are bringing Baby Monitors at their homes, Smart Security systems, the smart doorbell systems, fitness trackers, routers and offices, all across the schools. We need to ensure those devices are built securely from the start. Think about energy star for cyber. It is and programmer products that meet a government standard can have the cyber trustmark, and the consumers when their shopping can look for that and say, we can be safe online. We hope to see products on shelves by the end of the year. As you think about, as a company, the two models i just described, one is the model to lift up all boats to a minimum, the second is a voluntary one to incentivize products, frankly, it is the wild west out there, as you know with internet of things devices, to be built more securely, and to bring consumers into the mix so they show they value secure products as a shop. I would welcome your thoughts. So our riskbased approach is the way we think about these things. How are these devices going to be used . Therefore, we need varying degrees of assurance. First, we have set a framework for response ability ourselves. In cyber, we established a charter of trust. This is what responsible country that companies should be doing for their own operations. We also recognize were going to the public trust as well. With that, a riskbased approach with increasing degrees depending on the criticality of the devices we are talking about. We believe thats an essential part of our future. I am watching the time with dread. I could talk to you all afternoon about these topics. I know the audience is very interested. Two words about the eo. Let me ask you to wrap and how you want, as a government leader, how do you want the private sector to be engaging as an administration is launching this executive order and setting a framework for us . The eo is step number two as part of a threestep process we see. The first was the president negotiated voluntary commitments among a key set of a. I. Companies to say, you are building the technology, you have a responsibility to do so in a way that gains americans trust. Things like transparency on the data that models are trained on. Vigorous standards for that, which dont exist yet, but we need to be building. As well as working together to ensure that when models are deployed, it is truly clear how humans are interacting with it and how they are further refined to ensure there are safe overtime. That was the first that a voluntary commitments. That was then followed by the executive order, for folks who see it, a lengthy and rigorous executive order that aims to hit about the items you said, both occurred a. I. In areas where we see tremendous promise, Government Operations to make them more efficient, answer questions about complex areas, things like in the Education Field where we want to encourage using a. I. To help tailor the way kids study, because each child studies in a different way, and also managing the risks. For example, giving guidelines for how transparent a. I. Models need to be if they are being used for job selection or with loads. Because there are concerns. Garbage in, garbage out, to use an old term i imagine everyone is familiar with. Of models are trained unbiased data, they will spit out, no surprise, further recommendations likely to reflect that as well. Those are societal issues. On the brighter side, concerns regarding how we test the models for Cyber Security risks, for how they could potentially advance adversaries in developing different kinds of weapons we are concerned about. The executive order is really rigorous. It is set by a tight timeframe. For example, one i particularly focused on is how models are deployed across Critical Infrastructure. For example, you could see the promise and models used to add efficiency to rail systems. What signaling systems, how they should provide guidance. We are the humans in the loop, where the additional risk is, the department of Homeland Security is receiving risk assessments from various regulators, and we use that as a final step as input to step number three, which is the work by congress to build new laws to deal with the particular discs from a. I. First, voluntary steps. The second work we can do with the current law. And the third, new laws are needed. I think as we close the call, it is really a call to action to say that, as we bring the promise of a. I. In so many areas that there is a partnership between the private sector and government, something iti really focuses on, so we are working together. For example, the new a. I. Safety center the department of commerce is standing up. A new leader was announced. Theyre working to define standards. We need company sharing what they learn as they read team so that is put in place to make that testing as rigorous as it needs to be given the important ways in which we will see a. I. Deployed across the economy and society. Well, we are in the midst of this change now. It is real. Can i just say, at siemens we are so proud of the members of the administration who put these first two steps in, and we are working closely supporting the efforts of leader Chuck Schumer as he is drawing in the private sector to help shape that future legislation that will be the third step. These are remarkable times. Thankfully, we have remarkable leaders like you. Thank you so much. Thank you. I appreciate all the work we do together. Thank you all for listening and for your time. [ applause ] joining us now, ashley, executive Vice President for, Public Affairs at iti. [applause] joining us now, executive Vice President for Public Affairs at iti. That was a terrific conversation we just heard. It emphasized the vital relationship between government and industry of the future of so many critical tech policy issues. What is sure to be a dynamic year for tech policy, iti will continue to convene the necessary and timely conversations on the topics that are top of mind for all of you. We will continue to bring together voices from across the public and private sectors, explore present challenges, and help to advance opportunities for u. S. Tech leadership. Want to say a big thanks to all of our amazing speakers who have joined us today to share their insights about the future of innovation. It has been an honor to have you on the stage. Also, a huge thanks to our sponsors. These Member Companies made today possible. They are amazon, salesforce, cisco, net app, cognizance, accenture, meta meta, nielsen, sage, siemens and mastercard. We encourage you to share your thoughts about todays conversations on social media using the intersect 2024. You can also stay uptodate with all of our happenings on linkedin or on iti c. Org. Finally, thanks to all of you in the audience for joining us and sticking with us this afternoon. Please take a moment to complete the postevent survey, which is accessible here by qr code. It is brief and will help us optimize our events programs going forward. Finally, we have a reception. The day is not over quite yet. We hope you will join us just outside the back doors for a reception celebrating Cybersecurity Innovation hosted by mastercard. You can also participate in activations by global innovators and networking with other tech policy leaders. Join us just outside this room immediately following these remarks. Again, thanks for being part of the intersect 2024. We will see you soon. [ applause ]