Executives from some of the largest artificial intelligence companies are joining the Department of Homeland Security’s new board charged with reviewing the use of AI in critical infrastructure.
DHS today appointed 22 individuals to the Artificial Intelligence Safety and Security Council. They include executives from major AI companies, including Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, and Dario Adomei, CEO and co-founder of Anthropic.
DHS says the new advisory committee will provide recommendations “on the safe and secure development and deployment of AI technology in our nation’s critical infrastructure.” President Joe Biden has ordered DHS to create a safety and security council. as part of its decree on AI.
“Artificial intelligence is a transformative technology that can advance our national interests in unprecedented ways. At the same time, it presents real risks – risks that we can mitigate by adopting best practices and taking other concrete, studied actions,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement. “I am grateful that such accomplished leaders are dedicating their time and expertise to the Council to help ensure that our nation’s critical infrastructure – the vital services that Americans rely on every day – effectively protect against risks and achieve the enormous potential of this transformative technology. »
The new panel also includes Satya Nadella, chairman and CEO of Microsoft, and Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet, Google’s parent company.
Their inclusion, along with that of Altman and Adomei, means that executives from the four major U.S.-based AI companies will be directly involved in advising DHS policies regarding the use of AI in the 16 designated critical infrastructure sectors. Those sectors represent vast swaths of the U.S. economy, from telecommunications companies and energy grid operators to food companies and the healthcare sector.
The four companies created their own last summer “Border Models Forum” develop standards and practices around AI models.
The DHS board also includes executives from computer chip companies critical to AI and machine learning, including Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA, and Arvind Krishna, CEO of IBM.
The White House will also have a representative in Arati Prabhakar, assistant to the president for science and technology and director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
A full list of DHS board members can be found at the bottom of this story.
The committee’s recommendations will likely build on ongoing work within DHS. In a department-wide AI roadmap released in March, DHS outlined some of its plans to advance safety and security.
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency leads much of DHS’s work in this area.
THE roadmap shows that CISA will work with other agencies to issue guidance on AI security at some point this year.
The roadmap also details how CISA, the Transportation Security Administration and the Coast Guard assess “potential risks related to the use of AI in critical infrastructure sectors, including how the deployment of AI can lead to outages, physical attacks, and cyberattacks.”
DHS names director of AI Corps
Meanwhile, DHS this week named Michael Boyce to serve as director of the department’s new “AI Corps.”
Boyce previously served as a senior policy analyst focused on the federal risk management and authorization program and AI policy at the White House Office of Management and Budget. He also served as a digital services expert in the US Digital Service and worked at US Citizenship and Immigration Services to modernize case management and data solutions for refugee and claimant operations asylum.
As director of DHS’s AI Corps, Boyce will oversee efforts to recruit 50 AI experts to DHS by the end of this year. These experts will be assigned to various DHS components and offices to work on high-priority AI projects, following a model similar to that of USDS.
Since the body’s announcement in early February, DHS has received more than 3,000 applications for AI positions.
Eric Hysen, DHS’s chief information officer and chief AI officer, said the department is taking an “aggressive” recruiting strategy to fill these AI positions. The department uses direct hire authority and offers GS-15 level salaries to AI Corps recruits.
The department has already cited several areas where officials believe AI technologies could be applied, including identifying fentanyl shipments at U.S. ports of entry, combating child exploitation and abuse, and providing immigration services.
DHS AI Safety and Security Council Members
The full list of AI Safety and Security Council members announced today by DHS is as follows:
- Sam Altman, CEO, OpenAI
- Dario Amodei, CEO and co-founder, Anthropic
- Ed Bastian, Delta Air Lines
- Rumman Chowdhury, CEO, Humane Intelligence
- Alexandra Reeve Givens, President and CEO, Center for Democracy and Technology
- Bruce Harrell, Mayor of Seattle, Washington, and Chairman of the Technology and Innovation Committee of the United States Conference of Mayors
- Damon Hewitt, President and Executive Director, Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law
- Vicki Hollub, President and CEO, Occidental Petroleum
- Jensen Huang, President and CEO of NVIDIA
- Arvind Krishna, Chairman and CEO of IBM
- Fei-Fei Li, co-director of the Stanford Human-centered Artificial Intelligence Institute
- Wes Moore, Governor of Maryland
- Satya Nadella, President and CEO of Microsoft
- Shantanu Narayen, president and CEO of Adobe
- Sundar Pichai, CEO, Alphabet
- Arati Prabhakar, assistant to the president for science and technology and director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy
- Chuck Robbins, Chairman and CEO of Cisco
- Adam Selipsky, CEO, Amazon Web Services
- Lisa Su, President and CEO of Advanced Micro Devices (AMD)
- Nicol Turner Lee, senior fellow and director of the Center for Technology Innovation, Brookings Institution
- Kathy Warden, Chairman, CEO and President, Northrop Grumman
- Maya Wiley, President and CEO, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights
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