Through partners, its own internal research staff, and work w​ith NASA, the country’s aviation safety regulator is looking at a range of AI applications. The FAA has a chief scientific and technical advisor for artificial intelligence — machine learning, who is charged with expanding the country’s role in understanding how AI might be deployed in aviation contexts. And the agency is working on a plan, along with NASA, for certifying AI technologies for use in the national airspace system.

“We are harnessing predictive analytics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence to develop streams of data,” Polly Trottenberg, the FAA’s acting administrator, said in a note within one of the agency’s recent four-year research plans. “These capabilities allow us to create new tools and techniques and adopt new technologies.”

But hurdles remain for actually deploying AI. While the FAA has implemented risk management standards for the safety of national airspace, the agency told FedScoop it still needs to “adapt AI risk management methodologies and best practices from the National Institute of Science and Technology,” along with other institutions. The FAA has released several use cases in its AI inventory, but many of them are still somewhat modest, experts told FedScoop. Other uses are still in the research phase. 

There are further constraints, too. While the FAA is investing in research and development related to artificial intelligence, the aviation industry is more broadly facing ongoing safety issues with Boeing aircraft and an overworked population of air traffic controllers. And then there’s the matter of ensuring that flying stays safe, despite excitement about using artificial intelligence.

“It’s still very early days,” noted Anand Rao, a Carnegie Mellon data science and AI professor. “They’re taking a conservative, cautious approach.” 

The FAA declined to make Dr. Trung T. Pham, the agency’s chief AI leader, available for comment, nor did it answer FedScoop’s questions about staff within the agency focused specifically on artificial intelligence. The FAA, along with the Department of Transportation, have also declined to provide further detail about a mention of ChatGPT for software coding that agency staff removed from its AI inventory last year. Still, documents about several AI use cases from the agency, along with interviews with experts, provide insight into the FAA’s approach to the technology.

FAA pursues no-frills approach to AI

When asked about the most promising use cases for AI, a spokesperson for the FAA pointed to several, including predictive analytics that could help mitigate safety risks, assistance with decision support, automating certain processes, and improving engagement through virtual assistants. Some of those use cases have already been disclosed in the Department of Transportation’s executive order-required AI inventory while others are discussed in the agency’s four-year research plan. The DOT recently edited its inventory and some of the use cases appear to have been redacted, though the agency did not respond to a request for comment. 

Some of these AI applications are related to the weather, including a convective weather avoidance model meant to analyze how pilots navigate thunderstorms. The agency is also looking at an effort to use AI to support air traffic controllers, per the four-year research plan, as well as using artificial intelligence to address aviation cybersecurity. And the FAA is studying the use of AI and voice recognition technology to improve flight simulations used in pilot training. Still, many of the AI use cases identified by FedScoop are rudimentary or still relatively early in their deployment, while others remain in the research phase. 

Several that are in use are relatively modest — and reflect the agency’s circumspect approach. The FAA’s Office of Safety and Technical Training, which conducts data analysis and investigations, has already deployed a model for use by the runway safety team. The internal tool assists the team with automatically classifying runway incursions as part of their analysis. FedScoop obtained documents describing how this system works —  but the technology discussed in those documents, Rao said, represent well-tested algorithms that have been around since the 1990s and early 2000s, and not the newer technology used for systems like ChatGPT. 

Another is the “regulatory compliance mapping tool,” which is essentially an internal search engine-esque system for regulatory concepts. The tool is built off a database of documents provided by organizations like the FAA, federal agencies, and the International Civil Aviation Organization, a branch of the United Nations that focuses on aviation. The idea for the tool, which leverages natural language processing, is to reduce “research time from days or weeks to hours,” according to a presentation by the Aeronautical Information Standards Branch dated Sept. 20. 

Still, the tool is “essentially just a database,” said Syed A.M. Shihab, an assistant professor of aeronautics and engineering at Kent State University, and not particularly advanced. While around 175 FAA employees can access the tool, the agency told FedScoop, the platform is used fewer than 20 times a week, according to that same presentation. The FAA, which said the “internal FAA tool” is in the “development phase,” appears to have spent more than $1 million with a company called iCatalyst — which did not respond to a request for comment —  to build it, according to a federal government contracts database. 

“The FAA is continually working to make our processes more efficient. The Regulatory Compliance Mapping Tool (RCMT) is an initiative that can significantly speed up safety research,” the agency said in a statement. In March, the agency said security authorization would kick off later that month and that it had completed a Section 508 self-assessment process. 

Other systems disclosed in the AI inventory either don’t use the technology yet or haven’t been deployed. These include a tool to help transcribe conversations between pilots and another, called ROMIO, meant to help pilots understand cloud structures, according to FAA documents.

FAA’s AI work goes beyond disclosed use cases

Other AI work is ongoing, but it’s not clear if or how it’s been deployed. The FAA has worked with researchers at Georgia Tech and the University of Maryland to use AI for measuring collision risk, according to federal contract records. It also appears to have procured the development and implementation of a machine learning model from a company called Deep AI Solutions for its safety information sharing system. 

The FAA’s work with NASA, meanwhile, includes looking at AI for “runway configuration management, digitization of standard operating practices and letters of agreements, and natural language processing,” per a spokesperson. It also represents NASA’s machine learning airport surface model, which was supposed to help the FAA capture the location of routes, taxiways, and runways using a real-time machine learning system. NASA said this work has helped contribute to a framework it’s working on with the aviation agency. 

And at the MIT-based Lincoln Laboratory, which is funded by the Defense Department and the FAA, researchers aren’t focusing on AI for safety-critical applications, according to Tom Reynolds, who leads the lab’s air traffic control systems group. For example, the lab is researching a technology called “the offshore precipitation capability” to assist with weather radar coverage gaps. “Things that are more advisory and not directly in the loop of deciding where individual aircraft fly, but rather helping air traffic controllers with situational awareness and strategic decision making,” Reynolds said. 

Technically, the FAA has been looking at AI for decades — and lots of preliminary work with the technology does seem to be underway. For example, in March, the FAA announced a data challenge meant to help use artificial intelligence to address problems concerning the national airspace, and it’s recently hosted workshops on machine learning, too. Email records show that the FAA is invited to monthly meetings of the Department of Transportation’s AI task force. 

The FAA is working with industry and international counterparts on an AI roadmap, and developing a certification research framework for artificial intelligence applications with NASA. The plan is focused on developing a way of certifying AI applications that could be deployed in the national airspace in a highly safe way. It’s expected to launch later this year, the space agency said. 

Still, most of the AI work at the FAA isn’t for direct use in aviation. That reality reflects the broader challenge of using the technology in a safety critical context. In meetings with industry, the agency’s chief adviser for aircraft computer software has highlighted the challenge of approving AI software, while Pham, the agency’s AI chief AI, has detailed concerns about traceability, per a blog post on the website of RCTA, a nonprofit aviation modernization group. 

Similarly, a roadmap the FAA is working on with other aviation agencies around the world has encountered several challenges, including issues with predictability and explainability, the tracking of datasets that might feed AI models, training humans to work alongside AI, model bias, and safety.

“Because aviation is a safety critical industry and domain, in general, stakeholders involved in this industry are slower to adapt AI models and tools for decision-making and prediction tasks,” said Shihab, the Kent State professor. “It’s all good when the AI model is performing well, but all it takes is one missed prediction or one inaccurate classification, concerning the use cases, to compromise safety of flight operations.”

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Airlines can access several forms of personal information about passengers, including through apps, online purchases, software used by flight attendants, and, increasingly, biometric screening systems. While the Department of Transportation isn’t typically associated with investigations into digital rights violations, the agency says it has the authority to impose civil penalties involving unfair and deceptive practices involving passenger information.

The agency also has some enforcement jurisdiction under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act pertaining  to airlines, as well as some responsibilities — shared with the Federal Trade Commission — in regard to ticketing agents. 

“Airline passengers should have confidence that their personal information is not being shared improperly with third parties or mishandled by employees,” Buttigieg in a statement. “This review of airline practices is the beginning of a new initiative by DOT to ensure airlines are being good stewards of sensitive passenger data. DOT is grateful for the expertise and partnership of [Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.] as we undertake this effort to protect passengers.”   

The privacy review comes amid collaboration with Wyden’s office and is supposed to be the first of many. This round will apply to Allegiant, Alaska, American, Delta, Frontier, Hawaiian, JetBlue, Southwest, Spirit, and United, which have already received letters from the agency. The investigation will be led by the agency’s Office of Aviation Consumer Protection and cover personal information policies, privacy training within the airlines and complaints about airline privacy violations. 

Last year, that same office announced in a notice that it would begin to seek higher penalties on “airlines and ticket agents for violations of consumer protection, civil rights and economic licensing requirements.”

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The FHWA’s proposal to adopt CISA’s Cyber Security Evaluation Tool — which “authorities can use to assist in identifying, detecting, protecting against, responding to, and recovering from cyber incidents,” per a Federal Register posting — would meet a requirement called out in the bipartisan infrastructure law of 2021.   

The agency said in the posting that it “thinks it is appropriate to leverage CISA’s expertise instead of attempting to create a separate and potentially duplicative tool.” CSET, which is available for public download, provides modules and questionnaires tailored to specific critical infrastructure sectors. The voluntary software tool takes “a systematic approach to assess cybersecurity controls and processes.” 

FHWA’s decision to use CSET was made following coordination with CISA and the Transportation Security Administration, as well as consultation with various stakeholders on the efficacy of the tool. The FHWA noted that many state agencies use CSET, “while others customize alternative cybersecurity solutions to align with their distinct mission requirements.”

The FHWA said it will continue to partner with other federal agencies charged with the development of cybersecurity tools so that it can “ensure highway-related equities are considered and incorporated appropriately.”

The deadline to submit comments on the FHWA’s proposal is April 19, though late submissions “will be considered to the extent practicable.”

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A presentation dated August 2023 and titled “Advanced Capabilities for Capturing Controller-Pilot dialogue” shows that MITRE engaged in a serious effort to study how natural language processing could be used to help the Federal Aviation Administration, and, in particular, to help with “understanding the safety-related and routine operations of the National Airspace System.”

MITRE, which supported the project through its Center for Advanced Aviation System Development, told FedScoop that the prototype is currently being transitioned to the FAA for “potential operational implementation.” Otherwise, it’s not clear what the current status of the tool is, as the agency’s artificial intelligence use case inventory was last updated in July 2023, according to a DOT page. The FAA did not respond to a request for comment and instead directed FedScoop to the Department of Transportation. 

“Communications between pilots and air traffic controllers are a crucial source of information and context for operations across the national airspace,” Greg Tennille, MITRE’s managing director for transportation safety, said in a statement to FedScoop in response to questions about the documents. “Collecting voice data accurately, efficiently and effectively can provide important insights into the national airspace and unearth trends and potential hazards.” 

The August 2023 presentation describes several ways that natural language processing, a type of AI meant to focus on interpreting and understanding speech and text, could be fine-tuned to understand conversations between air traffic controllers and pilots. The project reported on the performance of different strategies and models in terms of accuracy and provided recommendations. At the end, it also describes a brief exploration of how ChatGPT might be able to help with comprehension of Air Traffic Control sub-dialogues, noting that “the results were surprisingly good.”  

The presentation reveals how the often-overwhelmed aviation agency might try to take advantage of artificial intelligence and comes as the Biden administration continues to push federal agencies to look for ways to deploy the technology. 

At the same time, it also outlines potential interest in ChatGPT. While the Department of Transportation said it doesn’t have a relationship with OpenAI, other documents show that officials within the agency are interested in generative AI.  

The Department of Transportation and ChatGPT

The reference to ChatGPT in the project, though it appears to be provisional and not a core part of the research, is more evidence of how the Department of Transportation might use generative AI tools in the future. FedScoop previously reported, for example, that the DOT’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration had disclosed a use case — described as “planned” and “not in production” — involving “ChatGPT to support the rulemaking processes.”

PHMSA, which said it’s continuing to study the short- and long-term risks and benefits associated with generative AI, has said it does not plan on using the technology for rulemaking. The agency also said that it has an agreement with Incentive Technology Group, worth about several hundreds of thousands of dollars, to explore generative AI pilots. 

PHMSA said that the project did not involve ChatGPT, but instead involved “Azure OpenAI Generative LLM version 3.5.” (OpenAI explains on its website that GPT-3.5 models can be used to understand and generate natural language or code, but PHMSA did not explain whether the reference to ChatGPT in the AI use case disclosure was a mistake or a distinct project from its work with Incentive Technology Group.)

Notably, while other agencies are beginning to develop policies for generative AI, the Department of Transportation has not responded to questions from FedScoop about what policies or guidance it might have surrounding the technology. 

Emails obtained by FedScoop through public records requests show that the Chief Data Officer Dan Morgan had on-hand a “generative AI” guidance document attributed to the government of New Zealand. An email last summer to the Department of Transportation’s AI Task Force from Matt Cuddy, operations research analyst at the DOT’s Volpe National Transportation Systems Center, shows that the agency had made large language models a topic of interest.

A publicly available document from 2019 said that through the task force, the DOT had made transportation-related AI “an agency research & development priority.” 

Last year, FedScoop reported that the Department of Transportation had disclosed the use of ChatGPT for code-writing assistance in its inventory, but then removed the entry and said it was made in error. The department has not responded to questions about how that error actually occurred. Emails obtained by FedScoop show that the incident attracted attention from Conrad Stosz, the artificial intelligence director in the Office of the Federal Chief Information Officer. 

In regard to this story, the Department of Transportation told FedScoop again that the FAA ChatGPT entry was made in error and that the “FAA does not use Chat GPT in any of its systems, including air traffic systems.” It also said that the use case was unrelated to the MITRE FAA project. 

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The GAO report noted that federal agencies are facing regulatory challenges with emerging technologies such as medical devices powered by artificial intelligence and drones. Technologies of that sort require more legislative architecture and coordination from Congress, the report stated. GAO offered three recommendations — all of which were accepted — to help the agencies’ efforts. 

The selected agencies — the Food and Drug Administration, the Department of Transportation and the Federal Communications Commission — also reported that they have been communicating with both domestic and foreign agencies about knowledge-building and outreach efforts, citing that foreign regulators were “more extensive than those used by selected domestic regulators.”

“During the time regulators build knowledge about emerging technologies, newer technologies can also emerge and create different or new policy questions,” the report states. “This pacing problem is made more acute by the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, which the literature has described as developing at an unprecedented pace. … Regulating too quickly may impede innovation and economic growth, among other things, whereas not regulating quickly enough may increase the risk of harm to the public.”

The report focused on “priority technology” at each selected agency, such as AI, 3D printing of biological materials, gene therapies, nonrecreational drone usage, highly autonomous motor vehicles and wireless networks like 5G and 6G.

GAO reviewed the FDA, DOT and FCC and interviewed each agency about a component that is responsible for emerging technologies, such as the DOT’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. 

Additionally, GAO selected and interviewed three foreign governments — Japan, the European Union and the United Kingdom — that “had committed to and been recognized for their efforts to regulate emerging technologies.”

“Selected federal agencies have reported coordinating with other domestic and foreign agencies to support their efforts to regulate some emerging technologies,” the report states. “Agencies’ interagency collaboration activities include efforts to share information and pursue goals for these technologies.”

The agencies reported that they used “varied approaches” to anticipate any regulatory issues, including “scenario planning,” and engaged with industry for knowledge gathering along with coordinating with other agencies and foreign governments to “share information and achieve shared goals.”

GAO conducted its audit from June 2022 until January 2024 in response to a request from House Oversight and Accountability ranking member Jamie Raskin, D-Md., and Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Government Innovation Subcommittee ranking member  Gerry Connolly, D-Va.

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Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., released the letter to DOT in response to a request for comment that the department posted in November, advising the agency to make the online form more accessible to users. 

These recommendations included the offering of a web-based form, removing “redundant and threatening” legal warnings from the existing form, removing duplicative fields and allowing passengers to opt-in to using previously filed paperwork so travelers do not have to resubmit for each flight. Wyden and Duckworth also recommended a helpline for those who have issues with DOT’s forms.  

“The first step is to see if DOT listens to Sens. Wyden and Duckworth and folks who represent disabled Americans [or] listen to disabled Americans about their needs and if they listen to that feedback and incorporate it,” a Wyden aide said in an interview with FedScoop. “If not, then it really depends on what the Transportation Department does as far as what Wyden’s next steps are.”

In the letter, Wyden and Duckworth cite the burdens placed on those who need to travel with their service animals, such as currently offering the required form in a PDF format, one that the legislators call “particularly difficult to access and interact with when using mobile devices or screen readers and other assistive technology.” Currently, the department only encourages airlines to use accessible web formats, like HTML, for the form.

The document cites the agency’s noncompliance with the Office of Management and Budget’s requirements of the 21st Century Integrated Digital Experience Act, which requires government websites to be accessible for those with “diverse abilities,” and warns against publishing content in a PDF format.

“There are a lot of laws already on the books mandating use of accessible technology, but just looking at this form as an example, those rules and those policies aren’t always followed,” the Wyden aide said. “So trying to make sure that agencies are able to follow that guidance and able to make things accessible to folks who need them is really important, and it’s something I think Congress in general and the government in general needs to focus on.”

Issues with DOT’s service animal form for commercial flying is “amplified” since the agency allows airlines to require travelers to complete and resubmit a new copy of the paperwork before every trip, regardless of whether the information has changed in between flights, according to the letter. 

The agency previously cited privacy implications in the final rule as a reason for allowing new copies to be required before every trip, stating that this would mean storing and maintaining an individual’s service-animal information on their travel profile “without the passenger’s consent.”

To remedy this, Wyden and Duckworth suggested that requiring stored information about a traveler’s animal-service attestation be optional, and only stored for a year in a database. The lawmakers point to American Airlines, which provides a yearlong, unique service animal number so that passengers do not have to resubmit the form for every trip. 

The Wyden aide said that the senator is interested in pursuing accessible, digital services further, but that it was too early to make any other announcements. 

“It’s a little too soon to talk about other services or other agencies, but I think if you talk to folks in the disability advocacy community, they’ll tell you that this is not limited to one form at the Transportation Department,” the Wyden aide said. “It’s really widespread, government websites, government services. There definitely is an interest to continue to do oversight on this issue.”

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In Florida, home to several international airports, the Kennedy Space Center and the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, “the closure of airspace to accommodate commercial space launches now happens often enough to noticeably affect airline schedules,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg explained back in May. 

Yet there’s concern that a software tool meant to limit the impact of these launches — and better manage the national airspace — isn’t developing as fast as it could. Called the Space Data Integrator, this FAA system is designed to funnel data collected from space vehicles in “near-real time.” Eventually, the SDI is supposed to play a role in a more integrated platform that could send information to air traffic controllers, the Department of Transportation’s inspector general’s office told FedScoop.  

The FAA has already been able to reduce the average amount of time that airspace must be closed, from over four hours to just over two hours. It’s also using time-based launch procedures and dynamic launch windows to address the problem. 

Still, documents obtained by FedScoop through a public records request outline limited funding for SDI and a stretched budget, factors that have led some to think that the project could use more support, even as the FAA pursues other strategies to mitigate the impact of commercial launches. As both air travel and launches increase, slowed development of the tool or one like it would mean that current issues resulting from this challenge, like delays, could get worse, according to a source on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. 

In a response to a request from that committee’s aviation subcommittee, the Department of Transportation’s Office of Inspector General published a report in June calling the tool’s effectiveness “limited.” Now, some are advocating for new language in a proposal for the FAA reauthorization bill to better fund the tool.

“The ability to regulate airspace for safety must meet the increasing demand on the use of the airspace,” Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Wash., ranking member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, said in a statement to FedScoop. “The House-passed FAA reauthorization prioritizes the deployment of new technologies, like the Space Data Integrator (SDI), to help maintain safety and efficiency for all airspace users. The guidance and funding in the bill will help the FAA provide airspace access that works for both the aviation and commercial space industries.” 

SDI, explained

A prototype for the SDI tool was installed at the FAA Command Center in Warrenton, Va., in June 2021. The tool is meant to replace a manual process used for data entry and is designed to feed telemetry information — like speed, altitude and vehicle position — from launch and re-entry vehicles to the FAA’s space operations team. 

Notably, it’s the first system to receive automated data from a launch provider, according to an FAA spokesperson. A screen of the SDI visualizes the flight path of the vehicle, as well as other metrics, according to Duane Freer, manager of the Air Traffic Control Office’s space operations, and the FAA presentation obtained by FedScoop. 

With this platform, the FAA says the agency can “more dynamically manage the airspace,” reducing the time needed to close airspace to flights and “respond more effectively to contingencies.”

Notably, not all the information on the SDI would likely be shared with individual air traffic controllers, since their screens will need to be populated with other information, too. “There’s a lot of information out there, but the controller needs to have one singular focus on one piece of glass,” Freer told FedScoop. “What we’re trying to do is make this as easy and integrated into that existing system. So it makes it easier and more manageable for the controllers.”

Myriad challenges for SDI

The SDI tool has previously run into some challenges, as evidenced by a June 2023 presentation to the Joint Resources Council, a governing board that approves investments and helps make decisions about SDI. 

That presentation, obtained by FedScoop through a public records request, involved a request for funding in advance of a final investment decision, as well as support for software fixes and as-needed security scans, among other objectives.

“As launches continue to increase in number and complexity, the manual nature of managing airspace will continue to increase and inefficiencies will continue to grow,” the presentation stated. “Currently, Air Traffic systems do not have automated data from Launch and Reentry Operators (LROs) to use in decision making.” 

When FedScoop reached out to the FAA about the presentation, the agency said that it does not currently measure the inefficiencies of the manual process, though those calculations could be part of future investment analysis work. When asked whether the system had bugs, the agency said that there were no current bugs preventing normal operational use and that a data encryption issue mentioned in the inspector general’s report was also resolved. 

But other hurdles remain, including the fact that SDI is only installed in a single location: the Warrenton Command Center. Similarly, only one company, SpaceX, currently uses the tool. SpaceX is responsible for the lion’s share of commercial space launches. Still, the inspector general report noted that while Blue Origin and Pacific Spaceport Complex Alaska were both connected to the system and had been in testing since 2022, the agency, a spokesperson said, doesn’t have a target date for onboarding either into the system. Neither Blue Origin nor Pacific Spaceport Complex Alaska responded to a request for comment by publication time.

A spokesperson for NASA said that the tool is used by commercial space providers and the FAA. Space Force told FedScoop it doesn’t need SDI, either. 

“The US Space Force is committed to partnering with the FAA to develop national and commercial spaceflight capabilities, which can then be leveraged to bring cost and schedule advantages to the DoD and the public,” Col. Doug Pentecost, deputy program executive director for SSC’s Assured Access to Space (SSC/AATS) program office, told FedScoop in an email. The Space Force doesn’t currently use SDI for its national security space launches, he added, since there’s an “existing proven process” for the Eastern and Western ranges. 

There’s also the question of SDI’s timeline. Originally, the tool was supposed to receive a final investment decision in 2019. However, the agency later decided to pursue limited deployment of an operational prototype — the tool being used today — in order to provide capabilities in the near term while continuing to collect information, the agency said. 

“Development and deployment of the SDI operational prototype is now complete,” the agency said in an email, adding that the system is transitioning to sustainment funding in 2025. Still, a final investment decision on a streamlined system integrated into existing air traffic systems isn’t expected until 2027, a timeline noted by both the DOT’s OIG report and in the presentation obtained by FedScoop. That timeline would put the tool on a gradual implementation timeline that would end in 2032, the OIG report noted. 

“Everybody certainly would like it sooner than later,” Freer told FedScoop. “That’s always the struggle, but I don’t think there’s any delay that it’s going to cause to industry or anybody else. I think we have a bridge to that future system that’s going to be able to allow growth and allow reduced impact and move us to that date. So while we would have liked to have it sooner, I don’t see a negative impact.” 

FAA authorization could accelerate tool

The language described as “Space Launch and Reentry Airspace Integration Technology” in proposed congressional reauthorization language would allow for the FAA to appropriate up to $10 million a year to speed up the development of SDI, a Transportation committee source confirmed. That’s a significant bump from its current annual budget of $4.5 million, which, the agency told FedScoop, is meant to cover maintenance, including personnel, software, licenses, hardware and security support. 

Isaiah Wonnenberg, vice president of regulatory affairs for the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, which represents commercial space companies, said SDI “provides foundational capabilities for managing the National Airspace System during commercial launches.” 

“The FAA should invest in the SDI to provide additional capabilities, including the integration of launch and reentry data directly onto air traffic controller displays, in a manner consistent with recommendations provided by the 2019 FAA Airspace Access Priorities Advisory Rulemaking Committee,” he added. 

Regardless of whether increased support comes through — and FAA reauthorization expires at the end of this year — the agency now has several recommendations to meet, as outlined by the OIG report. Mitre, a research-and-development nonprofit that assists the government with homeland security and aviation sectors, is also working on future concepts for commercial space operations in the national airspace, the FAA confirmed.

Meanwhile, the number of licensed commercial space flights, which exceeded 100 this year, is expected to grow. So too are the number of spaceports planned across the country.

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Singh will work closely with Beth Niblock, the department’s chief information officer, and senior official for policy development Solomon Greene “to advance responsible AI innovation, increase transparency, protect HUD employees and the public they serve, and manage risks from sensitive government uses of AI,” a spokesperson told FedScoop in an emailed statement. 

Under President Joe Biden’s recent AI executive order (EO 14110), certain government agencies will be required to name a chief AI officer within 60 days of the Office of Management and Budget’s corresponding guidance, which is currently in draft form and being finalized. According to the order, the new CAIOs are responsible for coordinating an agency’s uses of AI, promoting AI innovation and managing risks, among other things.

While some agencies already had chief AI officers before the Biden order, such as the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Homeland Security, others are getting started publicly naming their officials. 

In response to FedScoop inquiries, for example, the National Science Foundation and the General Services Administration both disclosed that their chief data officers will serve as each agency’s chief AI officer. The Department of Education also said it tapped its chief technology officer for the role.

Among the responsibilities for the chief AI officers outlined in OMB’s draft guidance will be vice chairing their agency’s AI governance board. Those boards, which will coordinate AI adoption and manage risk, are required within 60 days of OMB’s guidance and will be chaired by each agency’s deputy secretary. 

Prior to the Biden administration order and draft guidance, agencies were already required to have a responsible AI official under a Trump administration order (EO 13960). But according to OMB’s draft guidance, the new chief AI officers will also carry out those responsibilities. For HUD, a decision about the existing role is forthcoming. 

“​​The AI Governance Board will determine the appropriate role and integration of the Responsible AI Official into the important work ahead,” the HUD spokesperson said.

Outside of naming a CAIO, other agencies told FedScoop they’re making progress on AI-related work in response to inquiries.

A NASA spokesperson, for example, said the agency “is developing recommendations on leveraging emerging Artificial Intelligence technology to best serve our goals and missions, from sifting through Earth science imagery to identifying areas of interest, to searching for exoplanet data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, scheduling communications from the Perseverance Mars rover through the Deep Space Network, and more.”

Similarly, a Department of Transportation spokesperson said the agency is working on a “strategy to align with the EO.”

Rebecca Heilweil contributed to this story.

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“Can you ask our little friend to help me write an email about …” 

The friend in question is ChatGPT, and Moffat — the chief operating officer at HUD’s Office of the Chief Human Capital Officer — has made it her business to be “the AI person in the office.” 

While Moffat is happy to play the role of artificial intelligence sherpa, it’s clear to her and many of her colleagues that government leaders need to do a better job of communicating AI’s potential benefits to staffers and assuaging their fears about the technology. 

“If we don’t want them to be fearful, if we don’t want them to be resistant, we must be proactive in giving good information,” Moffat said Monday at ACT-IAC’s Imagine Nation ELC conference in Hershey, Pa. “We must be proactive in how we communicate and what we communicate, not just about who we are, but about who they are. And what do these changes mean for them and their future course.”

Many of the topics discussed Monday during the panel on “demystifying AI” were touched on in President Joe Biden’s AI executive order, which he signed hours later at a White House event. The order pushes federal agencies to reduce AI-related risks while also leaning into innovation. 

Much of that early innovation has been captured in a government database of AI agency use cases. At the Commerce Department’s International Trade Administration, for example, use cases include everything from B2B matchmaking to a chatbot pilot. 

Gerald Caron, the ITA’s chief information officer, said the agency has held all-day offsite training sessions with select staffers “to educate them and demystify some of the things” about AI.

“We’re working through and refining their use cases,” Caron said. Staffers will say: “‘I want to do AI and here’s what I want to do.’ Well, that’s really a process improvement thing. So let’s improve that process.” 

Several panelists spoke of the substantial AI potential in organizing and analyzing vast troves of government data. Don Bitner, the Department of Agriculture’s chief technology officer, said that an agency’s data strategy is inextricably linked to AI.

“If your data strategy does not mention AI, you’re not prepping the battlefield,” Bitner said. “Whether or not your organization is ready for it, it’s not a huge deal. But if you’re not at least looking down that road, that’s what you’ve got to focus on.” 

The sheer magnitude of easily accessible data is a net positive — but it also makes agency decision-making that much more difficult and underscores the necessity of embracing AI.

Alexis Bonnell, chief information officer and director of the Digital Capabilities Directorate of the Air Force Research Laboratory, noted that in the past three years, “about 90% of the world’s data came online. … So now I’m having to make five times the amount of decisions but with 1,000-, 100,000-times more information, right? And what is the one thing you want to do as a public servant? You want to make good decisions, good evidence-driven decisions on all categories.”

As agency officials dig further into the executive order’s requirements and move forward in experimenting with AI while simultaneously protecting the public from the potential risks of those systems, recognition has set in among government leaders that there’s no turning back. 

Anil Chaudry, associate administrator in the Department of Transportation’s Office of Planning and Analytics, mused that he spends “less time working on a $200 million contract” than trying to get approvals for his staffers to take “a $1,500 training course.” With AI, will common government barriers of that kind inhibit full-scale adoption?

“If we’re doing this, how do I make sure my workforce is educated, ready to take on the challenges of when generative AI is institutionalized?” Chaudry said. “And that’s what I struggle with now is, how do I make sure that they can supervise what’s going on? And that starts with trying to get them to play, experiment, innovate [and] learn, now.”

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The new investments, announced Friday, will provide $8 million to the DOT for the modernization of an outdated consumer complaint system for air travelers and $1.1 million to the FTC to retire and replace an old system that tracks information about textile products.

“Our newest investment in the FTC represents the kind of speed of delivery we aim to achieve, because the problem and solution are well understood and the FTC team is ready to make changes within the next 12 months. Additionally, our investment in DOT will help improve a system accessed by thousands of air travelers each year,” TMF Executive Director Raylene Yung said in a Friday statement.

The TMF, housed within GSA, is focused on improving technology across the government and currently manages 47 investments in 27 federal agencies. It received a $1 billion infusion through the American Rescue Plan and $255 million through the annual budget process. Previous investments included a $50.5 million round of funding for cybersecurity and customer experience investments at five agencies in July and $20.8 million for similar projects at three agencies in October 2022.

The House Oversight Committee recently advanced a bipartisan bill that would extend the TMF’s authorization through 2030 and would require agencies to refund or reimburse investments to maintain the solvency of the fund.

The DOT investment will specifically go to the Office of Aviation Consumer Protection (OACP), which will use the funds to enhance a system that tracks consumer complaints and tracks cases for “thousands of consumers each year,” according to a release.

Blane Workies, OACP’s assistant general counsel, said in a release that the modernized system will “make it easier for consumers to know their rights and file air travel service complaints should problems occur, while enhancing OACP’s ability to analyze these complaints and enforce aviation civil rights and consumer protection laws.”

Meanwhile, FTC’s project is focused on its system that issues “registration numbers to U.S. based businesses to identify who manufactured, imported, distributed, or sold a covered textile, fur, or wool product.” The TMF funds will be used to “modernize the Registration Number System by developing a user-friendly cloud application.”

Mark Gray, FTC’s chief information officer, said in a release that completion of the project would “mark a critical milestone – all FTC applications accepting incoming traffic will have been migrated to the cloud.” Gray said the funding will improve the agency’s security and move it closer to its “zero trust” goals, which has been a focus of the Biden administration.

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