Policy summit. This is about 35 minutes. Joining us now, it needs to bits, board member and Senior Vice President of Government Affairs at qualcomm. [applause] nate hey everybody. Its a genuine pleasure for qualcomm to support this event again this year and i really want to thank the iti team for all the hard work it takes to produce another event. Its clear that American Ingenuity drives research and development empowering us to new to the logical futures. Policies that promote r d and strong patent protections will ensure American Companies maintain their technology leadership. The United States is set to play a pivotal role in shaping the standards that will guide the future of ai. Just as qualcomm played a pivotal role creating Wireless Technology that fueled the mobile revolution, we are focused on democratizing the benefits of Ai Technology by an access to it in the palms of peoples hands via their connected devices. In 2023, the ai discussions primarily centered around training and demo for large language models. This year the ai conversation will shift to is the proliferation of Generative Ai Applications and it confirmeds making technology both easier to use. As ai becomes more integrated in our daily lives, addressing more responsible ai becomes increasingly emergent. It is imperative will work collaboratively to address risks then unintended consequences. Today we are showcasing just outside of the worlds first chipset designed to solve complex tenant is around transparency and authenticity in Digital Content across smartphones 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. Who better to guide us in these pivotal discussions than administrator Alan Davidson of the National Telecom and information administration, ntia . Before we welcome him, lets take a moment to upload the administrations forwardthinking investments, notably the funding and the open would you Access Network initiative through the public Wireless Supply chain and Innovation Fund driving connectivity and innovation. It feels it the cycle of innovation, testing and deployment, and Foreign Companies to leverage their R D Investments and unleash the power of market competition. Additionally we commend its work on the National Spectrum strategy, which is a blueprint for insuring American Leadership in 5g, advanced and 6g technologies. The shift towards open deployment the shift towards an open deployment approach for 5g and beyond highlights the pivotal role of initiatives spearheaded by Alan Davidson in collaboration with teens at the u. S. Department of commerce and across the u. S. Government. Now with great excitement and anticipation, lets welcome administrator davis into the state along with the iti president and ceo to share their insights on navigating ai and Artificial Intelligence policy. [applause] thank you. Appreciate the support of qualcomm. Hello again everybody. Please. Thank you. Alan davidson joins us as he did last year and in prior events and we are thrilled to have you back. Welcome. I am excited to be here, thanks. Its a great space. It is a cool space and its a Beautiful Day inside and out. Thank you for taking the time to talk to us. A lot of new. That is in relevance to the iti membership, nothing on you plate is not in relevance to the membership. [laughter] here working on a lot of things. Lets start with ai. You are referenced in the executive order and work is underway on the very tight timetable. 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 that lofty goals for ntia activity . Festival thank you for having me. As a former iti board member in a past life, its always great to be back. Congratulations on what you have been doing. Its an exciting and interesting time to be working in this space. Everybody has been hearing about it a lot already today, that responsible Ai Innovation will transform our economy, its hard to imagine a sector of the economy that will not be touched by all of this, and it will bring a lot of benefits to people, that is, i think, the strong belief that ntia has in the administration. We will only succeed in this if we ensure we are also addressing the serious risks out there, risks that exist today, not speculative risks, but risks around security, privacy, bias in systems. We are thinking acrosstheboard about all of these things. You have seen with a sense of urgency with the government is addressing this. We are early still in the lifecycle of all of this. People are jumping in, and i think a perfectly. We saw the set of commitments we were able to get from leading ai companies this number, incredibly important. The executive order which people talk about which we are now implementing against, or important, very ambitious. The work we are doing internationally with the g7. Nta has been part of all of that. We serve as the president s advisor on technical medications and policy, we are deeply engaged in the ai policy case. For us there are a couple of big projects, we are doing a big report on ai accountability and auditing which we started over a year ago. We have a big homework assignment on ai models. Also, a lot of work at the policy level internationally. So there is a lot going on. We are excited to be a part of what is happening in the administration. That is great. I will give the opportunity to talk about open models if you dress a rumor on the record between you and me, that ntia is considering changing its name to ntai. [laughter] who is talking about ai these days . Why would we do such a thing . He is completely joking. [laughter] i think that would require action by congress to change our name, but a guy can dream. [laughter] we are doing a lot in this space on this issue around open model weights, widely available model weights. What people would call opensource ai. Its a really hard problem that we have a homework assignment in the executive order to produce a report for the president by the end of july, so we are on the clock, about what our approach to these openai systems should be. There are real risks and benefits in the idea. There is concern about safety. If you open up models and let them be used without the kinds of safeguards that might be billeted otherwise, what are the risks . That the same there can be benefits to openness. There is a concern within the administration, a competition concern that there are only a small number of companies that control the most important models. Openness can be an approach to that. This will be an ongoing conversation. The good news is we have learned already that there are gradients of openness. It is not a binary thing and that may provide us a path think about how we address this. Stay tuned for the report coming out in july. Speaking of things that require further activity and action on report, sector strategies. Ntia, as you mentioned, is advisor to the president. Occasionally the president has to issue public reminders of that, as you did with the faa, but we will not talk about that. [laughter] what we are going to talk about is the National Spectrum strategy. That was a comprehensive, almost overwhelming effort to bring to bring some direction to the future course of activity in this area. You have got i dont know how you have enough people to do other work you have been assigned to do, but this one, tell us where the latest area of activity is on that. This is a super interesting and important area that doesnt always get the airtime, no pun intended, sorry, there arent a lot of spectrum jokes out there. [laughter] that it deserves. It is probably one of our nation s most important resources and also one of our most scarce resources. The demand for spectrum continues to increase. We needed for all the connected devices we know and love. The federal government needs it for everything from aviation radars, satellites to monitor the climate, all of that powered by spectrum. We need to do a good job of managing these scarce resources we have. The last two years, we have been working on a National Spectrum strategy which we have been overdoing to have. So pleased we were able to release one at the white house this november. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for the invitation, it was great to be there. And it lays out a path for how we are going, as a country, to tackle is very hard challenge about making sure we can feed the pipeline of spectrum needed for privatesector use and also make sure we have enough for our federal missions. We laid out a fourpart strategy which includes his line of spectrum to study in the next couple of years, work on new Spectrum Technologies like spectrum sharing, new collaborations with the private sector, and a real attention workforce in this space. Who need more engineers. Other kids to want to study machine learning, but there good jobs in understanding spectrum. We need more people in this space. So a lot of work to be done on the spectrum strategy. Of course this is unfortunately outside of your purview, but congress has not moved forward on a couple of issues relevant to ntias work. One is from auctions, which many have expressed concern about, Auction Authority expiring. What is the impact of that and what are your hopes, recognizing you dont have a voice in congress, what are your hopes for getting that issue resolved . Its kind of crazy that we dont have spectrum Auction Authority for the fcc. The chairwoman has spoken pretty eloquently about how important it is for their continued work in the space and it we will continue to have a smart spectrum strategy for this country, we need to have that Auction Authority reinstated. We are hopeful that there will be an opportunity to do that. Fullon both sides of the aisle understand the importance of that. Yes, lets talk about broadband more generally, another area where somehow you have people on staff who are working on this issue. Ntia is like a start up government. I have been the chair for about two years, almost 40 of ntia is brandnew since i started. So we have had to grow a lot for this. A lot of it for our broadband work. But its fun to run a start up do it in government. We have grown a lot. Next talk about government. What is the most important, from your perspective, of the work underway . It is a historic moment. We have this Incredible Opportunity we have been talking about the Digital Divide for 25 years. In the bipartisan infrastructure law we finally got resources to do something about it. The president has given us a mission, connect everyone. Everyone in america. He says it all the time. With reliable, internet service. We are well on the way. It will be a yearslong project. It will take a ton of work. We have programs in flight, middle mile, 1 billion out the door. To billion dollars in tribal connectivity finding out the door. Now with the 2 billion state Grant Program is in flight. This year will be a big year. Last year we got plans in at the end of the year from every state about how they will spend the money we will be giving them. This year they will implement those plans. All eyes turn to the states, they will start doing their grantmaking. We need everybodys attention. This is an all hands all day, on deck moment. The truth is money is being spent right now to connect people. Our broadband infrastructure program, we have passed over 36,000 homes past with the infrastructure we have built and funded through that. There are real people being connected right now. There is a lot more to come. We will not get tens of billions of dollars from congress to do this again so we have to get it right. Last question. You have touched on a lot of areas of activity relevant to the tech industry, them are areas you have been working on for decades at ntia and some are areas 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 areas you havent talked about, that industry can be helpful and be of service to you as you endeavor to accomplish these goals . Such a great invitation. I will [laughter] [laughter] say the list is long. You have heard a lot about ai. The truth is it is worthy of our attention right now and i think getting smarter, i just talked about the open model weights project, its a big city. These are cases of first impression. We need to be smart with the industry. We have a lot going on with the old Internet Policy Issues privacy. I am cochairing a task force on kids safety right now, figuring out how we can come back with industry best practices. We are doing a workshop in stanford we Just Announced on march 13, to get Industry Input on this. That is another area. Broadband, we need funding. That is another thing that is important. You heard about that earlier today, i know, just making sure it is all hands on deck effort paying attention. We just need more, i would say, people who have dual competency in government, who can understand technology and talk about the policy implications. We really appreciate the partnership with folks in industries, folks in the nonprofit world who help us understand these issues better. Thank you for your leadership in this space, thanks to ati and everybody here for being part of the conversation. Thank you. Talking about the intersection between the tactical knowhow and policy chops you have described yourself. We are very happy to have you here. Please join me in thanking Alan Davidson. Thank you. [applause] please welcome Anne Neuberger, Deputy Assistant to the president and w National Security advisor, cyber and emerging technology at the National Security council, and barbara hampton, president and ceo of siemens usa. [applause] [laughter] anne, so glad we are together. And actually i am so glad that jason has given the siemens, the chance to be your interviewer for this last segment, i love our conversations. For those who dont know, siemens is a company that has been working in the field of infrastructure our whole history. In the last couple of 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 and it is an order of magnitude larger than the internet of people. So the key questions of cybersecurity and the use of ai are coming to infrastructure everywhere, and here you are smack dab in the middle of all of that. I know we have questions about the executive order, et cetera, but you are in a room where it would be tempting to focus solely on risk. And yet, you also focus on opportunity. Tell me about the balance that you are working to achieve. Absolutely. First, its great to be here without a view, goods to be here with you, barbara. One of the great things about iti thank you to our hosts is it connects companies and government as an act policy, because of the country, to your question, we are the leading innovator on the global stage. Americas economy is the largest in the world because we encourage innovation and we really want to be a leader in not only in technology, but technology envelops many fields. Barbara and i have had many conversations about cybersecurity, about Telecom Policy as part of that. When i think about, to your question, the promise and peril of ai, i know its the end of the day, you have had many discussions here so i thought i would answer it in the context of a few examples of where we see both, to get us to think about how we bring that together. In the area of promise and peril, to your first question on cybersecurity, two areas. These same models that can help us really analyze, help a coder analyze code to find vulnerabilities, to find holes better and that a malicious attacker would look for to exploit, to improve the code, to make it stronger, to make it harder to exploit in the hands of the malicious attacker, those same models help them find vulnerabilities that have not been patched that have, not been secured, to use those to build more focused malware. That is an example of that. We want to ensure defenders are using those models first. That we are improving products as we build them before we deploy them, as well as then using those to find full abilities and the most important products deployed across our systems and 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 lose their ability to communicate, lose their ability to move. And their minds are fully intact. Their body essentially slowly disintegrates. There are various efforts to essentially take their voices and save them so that as the individual is only communicating by blinking or banging their head, that is translated towards so they can actually still communicate we. Know the downsides of voice coding, we saw it in the. ,. At the head of fraudsters, its a clearer concerns. So we see the promise and peril in a number of areas of ai. Our goal is to ensure on the promised side we are moving at speedwell thank you from the onset, how do we do this responsibly to manage the risks . Fascinating. We are living in a world where there promise and peril go handinhand. Lets pull the thread a little bit more about, in the world of infrastructure, in the past, people used to say, thank heavens its not connected. But we recognize there are threats to infrastructure, connected or not and, 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. About six weeks ago, we dealt with the iranian government hacking connected Water Systems. Water systems connected to the internet. They were able to have an impact on those Water Systems because they used the default password of 1111. It barely deserves to be called a cyber attack. They affected Water Systems across 16 states. So, to your point, those systems were not likely designed to be connected to the internet, but over time, it was a way to download information, perhaps a way for an administrator to also get his or her email as they do their job. So, security has to look at the way products are used today and ensure we can secure them appropriately, and then, i have a question for you as we build new, have to recognize that Autonomous Devices will be connected to the internet. Think the infrastructure that we have. Our electricity infrastructure has components which ideally could begin their health beaco n their health. For example after a major flood, people can see which lines are down, which lines should be optimized for maintenance. In an ideal world, we want the infrastructure to be connected in a way that is secure, predictable, and in the way that we can make sure it is protected from malicious attackers. So in line with that, siemens bills 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 you think about the broader infrastructure that you maintain . Actually, thank you for asking that because 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 and all those things. And, frankly, people couldnt even envision connected infrastructure, call at four decades ago. So, 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 we can bring today is burning the real and Digital Worlds together across all of this built infrastructure. Since 1970, researchers have been working with technologies like Artificial Intelligence, fantastic. The key question is, how do we apply all of these new technologies to the world we live in, we have been speaking in terms of industrial ai. Instead of using general ai on all the internet, we can creates trusted data sets using, say, utilities or a manufacturers data. Imagine a world where you have sensors on all your equipment. You are producing so much information, you simply cannot process it all. Now with ai, we can. So with about 2000 ai experts across the global organization, with about 1400 Cyber Efforts working handinhand with 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 unintended downsides and how to best build for protection. Its really interesting because, when we think about the most critical Cyber Security risks of the country, what we are most concerned about are malicious countries or criminals hacking or disrupting the water, power or pipeline systems that americans rely on everyday. As individuals and as companies. Those power companies, Water Companies are largely owned by private sector entities. Over the last doing the biden administration, who 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, that i want to lift up here and get your thoughts on. We are one of the last countries in the world to put in place minimum cybersecurity standards for pipelines, for Water Systems , to prevent the kind of thing i described where if our government could hack into a water system merely by identifying and trying default last words. Then i will note that what was interesting was, there were 16 systems if i recall correctly, that were hacked. All had default passwords. Additional systems that didnt were not the actually hacked. They dont cost much money, those basic practices. Those are now mandated for some key sectors under existing safety rules. The second piece was involuntary program called the Cyber Program which aims to say, americans are bringing big monitors to their homes, mart security systems, mart doorbell systems into their homes, fitness trackers, routers in our offices and across other schools, and we need to ensure they are built secure from the heart. So think about energy star for cyber. Its a program where products can have the Cyber Trustmark and then consumers can look for that and say, we can be safe online. We hope to see products on shelves by the end of the year. So as you think about it as a company, the two models i just described, one is a revelatory model to lift up all boats to a minimum. The second one is to incentivize products , frankly, its a wild west that there of the internet of things devices to build things more securely and to bring customers into the mix to show that they value secure products as they shop. I would welcome your thoughts on how you think about this. Both and. A riskbased approach is how we think about these things. How are these devices going to be used . We will need varying degrees of assurance. First we set a framework for responsibility ourselves. In cyber, we established a charter of trust. This is what responsible companies should be doing. But we also recognize that we are going to need 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 that is going to be an essential part of our future. Anne, i am watching the time with dried because i can talk to you all afternoon about these topics, and i know that our audience is very interested. Two words about the executive order, and let me ask you to sort of wrap in then how do 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 and setting a framework for us . So, the executive order is step two of part of a threestep process. The first was, the president negotiated voluntary commitments among a key set of ai companies to say, you are building the technology, you have a responsibility to do so in our that gains americans trust. Things like transparency of the data that models are trained on. Vigorous redteaming and standards for that, that we need to be building. As well as working to gether to ensure that when models are deployed, is important to make sure how humans interact with it and how they are further refined to make sure they are safe overtime. That was then followed by the president s executive order, really for folks who see it, a lengthy, vigorous executive order that aimed to hit at both the items you said, both encourage ai in areas where we see tremendous promise government, operations, how to make Government Operations more efficient answer questions about complex areas in a simpler way. Like in the education field, where we want to encourage using ai 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 ai models need to be if they are being used for job selection or in loans. Because there are concerns. Garbage in, garbage out, to use an old cap term that i imagine old tech term that i imagine everyone in this audience is somebody with. If models are trained unbiased data, they will spit out no surprise, further recommendations likely to reflect that. So those are societal issues. As well as on the broader 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 that we are concerned about. So the executive order is rigorous and set on a very tight timeframe. What i am particular focused on as it relates to our conversation is how models are deployed across Critical Infrastructure. So for example, you could see the promise in models used to deficiency to rail systems. How should signaling systems provide guidance. Where are the humans in the loop . Where is the additional risk in those that the department of Homeland Security is receiving risk assessments from the various regulators. We use that as a final step as input to step three which is congresss work to build new laws to deal with the particular risk that arrived from ai. The second work we can do within current law. The third, where 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 ai 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, then you nist ai Safety Center that the department of commerce is standing up, a new leader was announced, is working to define standards for red teaming. We need companies sharing what they learn as they red team so that is put in place to make that testing is rigorous as it is to be. Given the important ways in which we will see ai deployed across our economy and across our society. We are in the midst of change. Can i just sit at siemens, we are so proud of the members of the administration who have put these first two steps in and we are working closely supporting the efforts of leader schumer as he is drawing in the private sector to help shape that future legislation that will be that third step. These are remarkable times. Thankfully, we have remarkable leaders like you, Anne Neuberger. Thank you so much. Thank you, i appreciate all the work we do together. Thank you all for listening and thank you for your time. [applause] joining us now, ashley, executive Vice President for Public Affairs at iti. [applause] that was a terrific conversation that we just heard between Anne Neuberger and barbara compton, which emphasized the relationship between federal government and industry on the future of so many clinical tech policy issues. In what is sure to be a dynamic year cap 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 pressing challenges and help to advance opportunities for u. S. Tech leadership. I 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 intersect stage. Also a huge thanks to our sponsors. These itimember Companies Made today possible. They are amazon, salesforce, cisco, net app, cognizant, accenture, batter, sage, siemens, and mastercard. We encourage you to share your thoughts about todays conversation on social media using the hashtag hashtagthein tersect2024. Also on linkedin or on itic. Org. Thank you to the audience for stick with us this afternoon. Please take a moment to complete our postevent survey which is accessible by qr code. It is brief, and will help us optimize our events programs going forward. Finally, we have a reception, so the day is not over quite yet. We hope you will join us just outside the back doors for a reception celebrating Cyber Security innovation hosted by mastercard and net app. There you can also participate in activations by global innovators and network and connect with other tech policy leaders. Please join us outside this room immediately following these remarks. Again, thanks for being part of the intersect 2024. We will see you. [applause] Technology Industry council in washington d. C. [background noises]