Since this is being filmed, alcohol is not purchased with government funds. A fight with the catholic university. You know that it is an open bar. Chief Technology Officer of the United States. I want to go over a few of the things that michael has achieved. I use as my benchmark, and the last six months i watched half a season of breaking bad. And then got antsy and read the rest of the plot summaries on wikipedia. Here is what michael has achieved in the last several months. An ai executive order in february. In may the principals. In june, the ai strategic plan. In september the budget. What are you planning to do in the next nine months . First off, thank you very much. I am am extraordinarily delighted to be here. Absolutely incredible. An incredibly valuable complement. Everything has been driving since inauguration. Having such an incredible set of commissioners i think we are very lucky as a nation to have this group work for the american people. We have been extraordinarily excited about what weve been able to drive on. Our Big Initiative was to make sure we got it out in february. We have big pillars across the agencies. A lot of work force related issues. Essentially white house Regulatory Guidance memo to our agencies. First of its kind document anywhere in the world. A legal backing. How they should be thinking about regulatory or nonregular to technology. If you are trying to regulate drones, these are all agencies. Just think very carefully about the implications and the domains that they are overseeing. You will see a lot of the core themes that the United States generally thinks about with technology. We want to create environment that incentivizes to make investments and to make breakthroughs here in the United States. Doing that while also maintaining everything we hold so dear. There are a lot of smart people in the room that i hope will take some time and tell us what we did wrong so we can fix it. They know how hard it is to accomplish things quickly. You all accomplished a lot quickly. Can you tell me about the Biggest Challenges that you face . I think you are all experts in that space. Touching a wide, wide range range of agencies. Attempting to put together and enter agency group coming as a consensus on a document that the president of the United States himself assigned. That is a pretty tall order. The two biggest equities, security and civilian equities. Almost every Technology Priority it is to ensure leadership and emerging technologies. We have been working towards crafting National Strategies from quantum to 5g and so on down the line. For each of those, we see a twosided coin. A side of that particular technology. Coming to some enter agency consensus, we have to find a balance. Our big event at march of last year, we brought together stakeholders and opened up the conversation. When we launched that strategy, it took us almost a year. It took some time. A comprehensive piece of work there and something we are proud of. I know that the protect part of this is the one that most strongly intersects with the work of the commission. What would you think we got right and what we got wrong on the National Security side. As a commission, i think you did an extraordinary job of wrapping up the themes and need to drive what our National Security posture is on Artificial Intelligence. A couple of key ones that always come to mind to me, i think being able to integrate Artificial Intelligence into the way that all of our armed forces do their work is something that is a really, really, really hard task. They are a massive agency. Everyone has their own way of doing things and finding pathways to integrate this technology across all the various branches, i think its something we can do a lot of work on. I think its something that we are very much aligned on. Crosscutting between the Security Side and civilian is the talent question. How can we continue to bring in the most talented from the private sector and from academia into our federal family here to drive the outcomes that we need. I think that the third piece is something our director talks a lot about. This idea out that the world is fundamentally changed. A couple very Large Companies that have all the answers for all the Technology Solutions that they are looking for is over. We need to find a way to create better pathways and connections. Making huge breakthroughs that can deeply impact the way we operate. Finding ways to bring those folks in is something that i think we all agree on. [inaudible] it sounded so good to me across the board. I think one place where we want to find tune, but we are getting to a good position is ramping up on research and development. The administration has made a commitment to prioritizing Artificial Intelligence in a way that has never before been done in the history of our country. President trump was the first and in a budget that was sent to congress. That was done twice. In our priority memos, we call that Machine Learning for the first time in history and our three memos under this president. I think that we are aligned and prioritizing it. Where she where we should work forward is the right number. Cranking up the amount of recent Development Spending done by the federal government, what is the right number there and how can we do it in a way they can absorb those dollars in the most effective way possible. We are very much aligned on the highlevel goal. We can work with congress and other stakeholders to get to a place that works for everyone. Following up on that point, china has a published strategy to achieve leadership. Various estimates of how much china is spending. You all sponsored a very careful analysis on some of the ways that those estimates have been made. What do you think in terms of the financial commitments at the United States should be making. What would you guess is the right level for us . We are very interested in this question. Based on sort of who was in this room and the cameras back there, it is very clear that journalists care a lot about covering this horse race on the way we pursue intelligence globally. I think, frankly, a lot of misinformation about the way that some other folks around the world are prioritizing Artificial Intelligence. We know that Senior Leaders have expressed a desire to have china lead the world and ai. The question is, what are are they actually doing. Very smart people like your team trying to dig through this, i think think it needs that sort of careful evaluation. Rewind another 20 years and look at the housing boom in the bubble that happened in china, the expectation of what was actually going on did not match what the reality was at all on the ground. A huge disconnect of what was being reported. We need the smartest minds out there. Doing the research on where we actually are so we can think about how it stacks. What i think is very different about our model and the chinese model is the dollars that they throw around are not ones that i think even if they were true should be compared with the way our federal government spends money. For us, we have an extraordinarily vibrant private ecosystem that spends a lot amount on ai innovation. Knowing the types of dollars that would be made necessarily rolled up in the way the chinese think about their numbers. Whenever we do have a conversation, it needs to be apples to apples. If we are thinking about how we can do a progressive roll up, i think in the magnitude of doubling what we are doing today, i think it is a goal we should all strive for. Making a big difference in the ecosystem. One that the ecosystem can actually absorb. We heard a lot about the strategic advantages that the United States enjoys by having allies. That is not true of some of our competitors. You have helped to lead the work that they did on the principles. I think that that was one of the first or multilateral papers on issuing a set of ai norms. What do you think is the next step for the United States to lead on value internationally . Our office is very proud of the work that we did. An environment where our administration is very thoughtful about entering into new multilateral agreements and takes those decisions very, very seriously. Getting to a point where where we got that signed. Something that we are very proud of. I think it speaks to how critically important it is for us to come together with our allies to share our values. I think what is frightening for Many Americans and many people in the west is a way that the chinese have Twisted Technology to really, to use use it in a way in which fragrant lee violates the way we think about the world. When Artificial Intelligence is used to survey people to imprison minorities, to violate human rights, it is something that we of the west cannot stand for. That is why we as a western democracy need to come together and reassert that these are the values we deeply believe in. What is really fundamental about this issue is, as i talked earlier, earlier, we think a lot about promote and protect. We can go around the world and talk about how important it is to have secure communication networks. How important it is to make sure our research is protected. At the same time, we need to think about the other side of the coin. Making sure that the next generation are developed in the west. Underpinned by our western common democratic values. I think that that is what is absolutely critical. Something we need to continue to do with our allies. They are as eager as we are. Can you say a little bit about what you saw as the biggest surprises in that process of working with the other members and try to formulate a set of principles . In all honesty, i think we were surprised how close we got to reflect what the president reflected in his ease iq to a border. We went into that process very skeptical about the ability to move the room in a direction that was more pro innovation and less pro preemptive regulation. A great team that went over there. Able to have a great conversation with them about stressing how whatever we do we need to make sure we are not stifling innovation at the end of the day. It is not helping to actually drive nextgeneration innovation. Certainly not the rules that our adversaries have when they are making their discoveries. I was surprised how close we got to what the president directed in his ease active order. If we can engage smartly early and with clear eyes, i think we can actually move our allies closer to the way we think about the world. A pretty privileged place to sit. You are able to cherry pick from some of the best talent across the federal government. It has often been a challenge to bring in technical talent as well as talent that may be in adjacent areas relevant to our ai policies going forward. Tech policy and tax law. Can you describe some of the ways you think the government will have to meet this challenge . The entire demonstration thinking about it generally. The last administration thought very carefully about this. Bringing tech talent in for citizen facing Technology Issues creating the digital service. Continuing to support and the resources to bring talent in. A Fellows Program which was actually signed into law by obama on the way out. That is another great option where we can bring in for two hours of duty. I think that we need to continue to think about ways, think about how we can clear pathways for talented individuals that want to make a difference for our country to come here quickly. And then go back to what they were doing before. We can get the latest and greatest technologist to make a 20 year commitment to working somewhere in the federal government. We should not stop trying for that. We should also try to find other efforts to bring people in. There is this observation attributed that most of the smartest people always work for somebody else. There is a great addition that you all made to the National Strategic plan adding a priority on expanding publicprivate partnerships. What are some of the approaches that you see most likely to succeed in building stronger partnerships between government industry academia making those relationships more fluid. That could not be more important. Something that we have talked about at length. I think at its core it goes back to this talent question. Very familiar with the very high end talent they are facing. If they go work for private companies, is the work they are doing tied up in this closed ball wherever they are working . You move people from academia into the private sector and so on to drive innovation. We feel like there are Important Partnership models that can happen bringing them together along with the federal government you could make a really big difference. I think congress is on our side on that. Tracking the act that was signed by the president. A National Effort on quantum leadership. Three agencies driving it. As part of that legislation, there was was a call to create. You had private institutions partnering and working the federal government to create spaces where folks can do this research. Quickly translate into commercialized stuff. I think a way that we have tried to incorporate that, we have already seen sort of the first roots of that take hold. That is an effort to set up Artificial Intelligence. Those have been great. I will argue that the dollar amounts assigned to them, i think you could add a couple of zeros, but as a start, a start, building that connective issue on creating good partnerships. I think that general has pointed out in so many of the upside potential applications of ai and dod is to process. Back office tasks that right now take so much human effort and are not really taking advantage of the human skills that some of these exquisitely trained officers have been given. What are some examples of process automation within government that you are most excited about. Logistics or contracting or whatever else. There are all sorts. The contracting stuff is very fascinating. Kind of under ai use that looking at regulations. This idea that the federal register is absolutely massive in the way that we can kind of look at it and optimize in a way and find regulations that do not necessarily meet the world that we live in today. Regulations talking about fax machines, whatever it may be. An effort underway there. To me, i think any sort of supply chain related logistics question, some of the stuff that the dod is looking at can make a really big difference. We host an event at the white house about a month ago where we kind of launched our effort on ai and government. I think one of the realizations was the bar was really, really low. Something that they have seen as well. You can make a pretty big impact early on. A lot of low hanging fruit. As we try to find this, we often do a great job of educating, training up and finding ways that we can work with people who want to implement ai, but it is not something they have done before. On the civilian side, launching a center of excellence at gsa. This is a model we have used for other efforts where we know that multiple agencies need to move from the cloud. To the cloud for email services 80, 90 of the work that needs to be done to make that transition is the same. Whether you are at hyde or sba or anywhere it may be. There is no need to reinvent the wheel every time. They can at least provide an 80 solution for the five most common processes where you could use ai. An issue that unites americans. I often point out that washington is an island surrounded by reality. Here inside the beltway people are obsessed
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