The National Security commission on Artificial Intelligence conference. We hear from the chief Technology Officer for the u. S. And talks about the importance of Artificial Intelligence and some of the potential pitfalls. We will resume so that everyone can get over to the alcohol as soon as possible after mac i should note since this is being filmed that that alcohol was not purchased with Government Funds but instead was the funds of a Catholic University so you know its an open bar. [laughter] we are really honored to close out the day with one of my heroes, chief Technology Officer of the United States and i want to go over a few of the things that michael has achieved in the last month. I use as my . In the last six months i think 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. Ai executive order in february and in may the oa cd ai principles and in june the ai Strategic Plans in september the supplemental budget and what you are planning to do in the next nine months are you the how will you top that . First off thank you. Im delighted to be here. The efforts done by this commission are incredible and they are an incredibly valuable confident. Everything thats been driven since inauguration and having such an incredible set of commissioners driving this agenda we are lucky as a nation to have this group working for the american people. That being said, weve been extraordinarily excited about what weve been able to drive on ai and i think the Big Initiative was to make sure we got the executive order out in february and we can jump into that but i think that we have big pillars on how we are coordinating better r ds across the agency and workforce related issues on that an International Engagement that we touched on in the last piece that we have not put up publicly but will, in the following weeks is a white house revelatory and we will have a first of its kind document anywhere in the world where we have a document with Legal Backing to tell the agencies how this should be thinking about reagan tory approaches to Ai Technology so if youre the deferment of transportation and trying to relate Autonomous Vehicles or regular drones or fda trying to write late medical diagnostics these are agencies that think carefully about the indications of Artificial Intelligence in the domains that they are overseen. You will see the core themes that the United States generally think about when we talk about technology regular want to create an environment that incentivizes nextgeneration to make investments and make breakthroughs here in the United States but doing that while also maintaining all the values we hold so dear. We will put it out for comment and i hope people in the room will take time and tell us what we can do wrong so we can fix it. A lot of people in the room had previously worked in the enter Agency Process and know how hard it is to accomplish things quickly. You all accomplished a lot quickly so can you tell me about some of the Biggest Challenges that you faced in getting the agencies and apartments on the same sheet music. Yet, i think what is challenging about ai and youre an expert in the space you know its something that touches a wide, wide range of agencies. If you are attempting to put together an Interagency Group that will come to enter Agency Consensus on a document that the president of the United States himself will sign thats a pretty tall order and i think if we think of the two biggest equities we have secured equities and civilian equities. In almost every Technology Priority that we are driving if we take a step back and say what is the main tech agenda of the white house and this administration it is to ensure American Leadership in emerging technologies. We want to and have been working towards crafting and promulgating ai quantum down the line and for each of those we see the world as a twosided coin and a promote and protect side of that technology. To come to enter Agency Consensus we have to find a balance between those things and we had a big event in the white house in march of last year where we brought together stakeholders and open up the public conversation and what should be in the National Ai Strategy and when we launch that strategy and took us almost a year and we signed it out in february. It took time but the end of the date we had a pre comprehensive piece of work and something that we are extraordinarily proud of. I know that the protect part of this is the one that most strongly intersects with the words the commission has done and i wonder, given security is one part of the executive order if you tell us what you think we got right and what we got wrong on the National Security inside of ai. As a commission i think youve done an extraordinary job of wrapping up the very large themes the need to drive whatever our national severity posture is an Artificial Intelligence. A couple of key that come to mind and i think being able to integrate Artificial Intelligence into the way that our armed forces do their work is something that is a really, really hard task and the dod is a massive agency and everyone has their own equities and interests and own way of doing things and finding pathways to integrate the technology across all the various branches its something we need to do a lot of work on and that is something we are very much aligned on. The other thing that is crossposting between security and civilian is the talent question. The desire of how we can continue to bring in the most talented ai scientists and technology from the private sector and from academia into our federal family here to drive the outcomes we need. To continue to try that and i think the third piece is something that our directorate talks about and this is the idea of partnerships. The idea that the world of technological innovation is fundamentally changed and the idea is a couple of very large committees that have all the answers for all that Technology Solutions at the dod is looking for is over and we need to find a way to create better pathways and connections with startups and Smaller Companies that can make huge breakthroughs and deeply impact the way we operate and wait we deliver on our mission. Finding ways to bring those folks into the fold something that i think we will agree on. But to be different on . I dont know. It sounded so good to me across the board. I think one place where we want to find fine tune but were getting to a position is how we can ramp up on research and development. The administration has made a commitment to prioritizing our Artificial Intelligence in a way that is never before been done in history of our country. President trump was the first in history to include Artificial Intelligence in an r d budget in a budget that was sent to Congress Done twice. In our priorities memos that we promulgated from the white house and agencies we called out Artificial IntelligenceMachine Learning for the first time in history and are three memos under this president. I think we are aligned and prioritizing it and i think where we should Work Together on and find a good way forward is what is the right number and we want to crank up the amount of recent develop in spending done by the federal government what is right number they are and how can we do it in a way that the system can absorb those dollars in the most effective way possible and we are very much aligned on the high level goal and Work Together to find those specifics and work with congress and omb and other stakeholders to get to that place that works for everyone. Following up on that point, china has a published strategy to achieve global ai leadership and their various estimates of how much china is spending u. S. Sponsored a really careful analysis surpassing down the ways those estimates have been made and what do you think in terms of the financial commitments the United States should be making and what is the rough order of magnitude that you would guess is the right level for us . Yeah, to me we are very interested in this question because based on who is in this room and the camels back there and everyone else is clear journalists care a lot about covering this horse race between us and our adversary on the wait we pursued that element of Artificial Intelligence globally and i think frankly theres misinformation around the way that folks around the world are prioritizing and we know that Senior Leadership and leaders in china have expressed a desire to have china lead the world and ai in a decade but the question is what are they actually doing and they are very smart people like your team for trying to dig through this and what it means his careful evaluation. If you rewind 20 years and look back at the housing boom and bubble that happened in china the expectation of what was going on and what the press was talking about for many years did not match with the reality is at all on the ground and a huge disconnect between whats been reported in the reality situation. We need the smartest lines out there to dig through and do the Important Research and figure out where we are so we can think about how it stacks. When i think is different about our model and the chinese model is that the dollars they throw around are not ones that even if they were true should be compared at all with the way our federal government spends money. If we look at for us, we have an extraordinarily vibrant private ecosystem that spends a large amount of private sector dollars on Ai Innovation and those are the dollars that dont that would be necessarily rolled up in the way the chinese thing about the number so we need to make sure we do have that conversation its apples to apples. If we are thinking about how we can do a progressive rollup thinking in the orders of magnitude its a goal that we should strive for and something can make a big difference in the ecosystem and then one can absorb it. In the last panel we heard a lot about the kinds of strategic advantages of the United States enjoys by having allies and we have friends and that is not true of some of our competitors and they dont have many friends. You have helped to lead the work that [inaudible] did on pencils and i think that was one of the first multilateral papers on issuing a set of ai norms so what do you think is the next step for the United States to lead on values internationally . Yeah, our offices is proud of the work we did at the ocd. In an environment where our demonstration is thoughtful about entering into new multilateral agreements and takes those decisions very seriously we got to a point where we are able to get that agreement signed and so it something or proud of and i think it speaks to how critically important it is for us to come together with our allies to share our values. To me what is frightening for Many Americans and many in the west is the way that the chinese have Twisted Technology to use it in a way which frequently vibrates the way we think about the world. When Artificial Intelligence is used two survey a people to imprison minorities into violate human rights is something we of the west cannot stand for. Is a talked earlier we think but promote and protect, and we can go around the world and talk about how important it is to have secure communications networks, how important to make sure Research Ecosystem is protected, but at the same time we need to become this the other side of the coin and come together with allies and talk about how making sure the next generation technologies are built in the western, and i think thats what is absolutely critical and its something we need to continue to do with our allies because theyre at eager as we for lead the world in technological discovery. Can you talk about the biggest surprises in that process of working with the other oecd members and trying to formulate a set of principles. I think we were surprised with a how close we got the ocd principles to direct what the president directed in his executive order. I think 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, and we had a great team that went over there and were able to have a really good conversation with them about stressing how whatever we do, we need make sure were not stifling innovation. We may have the greatest regulations but that doesnt drive next generation innovation and not the rules our adversaries have when theyre make their discoveries. What i was most surprised how close we got to what the president ticketed in his executive order and if we can engage smartly, earl and with clear eyes we can move our allies in directions closer to the way we think about the world. So, ostp is a privileged place to sit because youre able to cherry pick from the best technical talent in the federal government, its often been a challenge for parts of the federal government to bring in technical talent and talent that it might be in adjacent areas relative to our policies, like trade analysis and trade strategy, tech policy and tech law. So, can you describe some of the ways in which you think government is going to have to meet this challenge . Yeah, we have struggled and the entire administration thinks but generally when we bring talent into the administration. The last administration thought carefully about this, especially around the way to bring tech talent in and created the United StatesDigital Service which we try to give them the resources to bring talent. In a president ial Innovation Fellows Program signed into law by obama on the way out and thats another great, great option where we can bring in talent four tours of duties but each program has limitations and we need to think about how we can clear pathways for talented individuals who want to make a difference for your country to come here quickly, make a duffs, and then go back to what they were doing before. This idea that we can get the latest and greatest technologists to make a 20year commitment to working in the federal government, we shouldnt stop trying for that but we should also try to find other lines of efforts or pathways to bring people in. Building off that, theres this observation attributed to bill joy that most of the smartest people work for somebody else. And theres a great addition 0 you made to the Strategic Plan adding a priority on expanding publicprivate partnerships. What are the approaches you see being most likely to succeed in builder stronger partnerships between government, industry, academyarch ya, making relationships we taj about that at length and goes back to at its core to the talent question. We all are very familiar with the issues that very high end a. I. Talent is facing, stay at academic institutions, if they work for private companies, will the is the work tied up in the closed wall garden of wherever theyre working and how do you move people from academia into the private sector and so on to drive innovation. To us we think theres Important Partnership models that can happen and if youre able to bring entrepreneurs and innovators and you can make a big difference and congress is on our side on that. Many of you may hey trafficked the National Quantum act so its three main agencies driving that, and there was a call to create quantum consort ya, to create spaces where folks can do the research and translate into commercialized stuff. And i think a way that we have tried to incorporate that and the way were thinking but official intelligence we have seen the first roots of that take hold and thats an effort by the National Science foundation to set up National Science consort deafblind ia. I think as a start were being able to build that connectiontive tissue how to great good partnerships. Gentian na hand pointed out in the really upside potential applications of a. I. In dod is to process automation, tasks that take so much human effort and not taking advantage of skilled officers have been given. What are he examples of process automation in government youre most excised about. Whether its logistics or crag or whatever else . I think the contracting stuff is very fascinating. One effort were working on is under a. I. Used looking at regulations, this idea that t