GSA Administrator Robin Carnahan told FedScoop in an interview at the signing ceremony for the executive order that the policy will push her agency to protect government data and use it responsibly within AI tools, encourage experimentation of the technology — particularly generative AI — and increase the pipeline of AI talent using additional resources.

“We’re very focused on protecting our data and figuring out how to use our datasets in ways that are responsible and aren’t subjected to misrepresentations of other things. So that’s the number one goal from the EO,” Carnahan told FedScoop. 

“We’re also very focused on experimentation. We’re encouraging people to try new AI projects — we’re tracking it very closely but we’re also encouraging experimentation of AI. In fact just yesterday, I signed up for access to be able to use these popular generative AI tools myself – three or four of them that I was allowed to use. So talk to me about that in a few weeks,” she added.

GSA, which plays a key role in the federal government’s procurement of software, could leverage its buying data with AI tools to get lower costs and better value for federal agencies.

“We want to use AI to advance our mission and do things more effectively. We do a lot of procurement, for example, so there’s lots of potential for using our huge amounts of data and using AI to get the best prices and best value for the agencies that we represent. And also open up opportunities for businesses,” Carnahan said.

Carnahan said earlier this year that GSA is “laser-focused” on hiring talent to get the right expertise needed to update the agency’s processes and systems. Biden’s AI executive order has only intensified and clarified the need to do this as soon as possible, particularly when it comes to drastically increasing the number of skilled AI workers in the federal government. 

“One of the things that we’re tasked with doing in the EO, along with some other agencies, is to really spend time recruiting talent into government. We’ve got a couple of places to do that with like the Presidential Innovation Fellows program and the U.S. Digital Corps — both of which are going to be targeting specifically bringing more AI talent in the government and that’s both for GSA, but as you know, they will get spread around all federal agencies,” said Carnahan.

She added that GSA plans to “incrementally expand” the two tech talent programs for the purposes of executing the AI executing order’s requirement of meeting the demand for AI skilled workers. 

Carnahan earlier this year said federal agencies have the money and momentum to improve service delivery and customer experience, which she hopes can be achieved more quickly through AI tools and their underlying infrastructure powered by powerful cloud resources. The modernization of the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) will be key to that.

“The other thing we’re very focused on is FedRAMP. So it’s our job to be able to, you know, get FedRAMP portable for these cloud resources. And there are gonna be more and more of these AI-related asks. So making sure that’s a streamlined process, so people can have access to tools is going to be important,” the administrator said.

The post Executive order gives GSA a lead role in executing the administration’s AI vision, Carnahan says appeared first on FedScoop.

The wide-ranging executive order, which aims to tackle everything from AI privacy risks to federal procurement, calls on several agencies to take on new responsibilities related to artificial intelligence. The order also addresses new strategies for federal agency use of the technology, including issuing guidance for agency deployment, helping agencies access AI systems through more efficient and less expensive contracting, and hiring more AI professionals within the government. 

As part of that recruitment effort, the White House’s AI.gov website is set to reveal a new AI-related jobs portal for prospective federal workers. The Office of Personnel Management, U.S. Digital Service, U.S. Digital Corps and Presidential Innovation Fellowship are supposed to lead this hiring initiative. 

“President Biden is rolling out the strongest set of actions any government in the world has ever taken on AI safety, security, and trust,” White House deputy chief of staff Bruce Reed said in a statement. “It’s the next step in an aggressive strategy to do everything on all fronts to harness the benefits of AI and mitigate the risks.”

The executive order comes amid ongoing discussions about federal AI policy. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., is continuing to host AI Insight Forums, which aim to bring together a range of AI experts, civil rights advocates and members of industry to inform Congress’ work on regulating AI. The executive order also foreshadows new guidance for federal agencies long expected from the Office of Management and Budget. 

The executive order is meant to build on — not replace — previous AI efforts, including Executive Order 13960 and the Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights, a senior administration official told FedScoop on a call with reporters Sunday.

There are a litany of other new responsibilities established by the order. The order directs the National Institute of Standards and Technology to create red-team testing standards for AI systems. The Departments of Energy and Homeland Security are meant to study the threat of AI to critical infrastructure, along with other AI safety challenges. Any agency dealing with life sciences projects is supposed to make federal funding contingent on new standards, too.

And the Department of Commerce is charged with creating authentication and watermarking standards for generative AI systems — following up on discussions in the Senate about similar kinds of verification technologies. 

As part of several stipulations related to civil rights, the order calls for guidance to landlords, federal benefits programs and federal contractors to prevent AI-exacerbated discrimination. 

The order cites the need for training, technical assistance and coordination between the Department of Justice and federal civil rights offices to support the prosecution of AI-related civil rights violations. The Department of Health and Human Services is meant to establish a method of receiving reports on AI health risks and the State Department is supposed to lead an effort to create an international framework for the technology. 

A full copy of the executive order, which includes myriad provisions and is scheduled to be formally announced Monday afternoon, was not immediately available for publication.

The post Biden’s new AI executive order gives several agencies more responsibility appeared first on FedScoop.

OPM established the program following consultation with the White House. It allows executive and judicial branch employees and agency leave bank programs to donate unused leave to employees who need it.

Leave banks are voluntary systems set up on an agency-by-agency basis, and are governed by title five of the United States Code, which allow government workers to contribute unused leave to other staff who need it. In 2017, OPM set up emergency leave transfer programs for government workers in response to hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria, which caused widespread damage in the Florida panhandle and along the U.S. Gulf Coast.

“Agencies with employees adversely affected by the 2023 Hawaii Fires are in the best position to determine whether, and how much, donated annual leave is needed by their employees and which of their employees have been adversely affected by the emergency within the meaning of OPM regulations,” an OPM spokesperson said. “They are also in the best position to quickly facilitate the transfer of donated annual leave within their agencies.”

Deadly wildfires swept through the island of Maui last week, destroying much of the historic town of Lahaina. As of Wednesday afternoon at 4 p.m. EST, the death toll from the blaze had risen to 106, according to the Associated Press.

At least 2,000 businesses on the Hawaiian island remain without electricity, and in many places, the fire has contaminated the water supply.

President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden are next week scheduled to travel to Maui meet survivors.

The post Emergency leave transfer program authorized for federal workers hit by Maui wildfires appeared first on FedScoop.

Regulating AI is a cornerstone of the current administration’s agenda, but the push to figure out where the federal government was using the technology began before President Joe Biden took office. In the final weeks of the Trump administration, the White House published an executive order calling on federal agencies to report all current and planned uses of AI and publish those results. The goal, according to Executive Order 13960, was to document how the U.S. government is using AI and establish principles for the technology.

More than two years later, the process of actually developing these inventories hasn’t gone smoothly. Unlike other government AI initiatives such as the Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights and the National Institute for Science and Technology’s Risk Management Framework, the 2020 executive order carries the force of law and has terms that require compliance, argues Christie Lawrence, an affiliate at Stanford’s RegLab.

The way agencies are complying with the executive order points to potential lessons for federal agency implementation of future executive orders and statutes related to AI regulation, she told FedScoop.

In the absence of a U.S. national AI strategy, said Lawrence, “compliance with Executive Order 13960 is really important because it kind of functions — along with some other documents — as the sort of American government strategy towards AI.”

The issues raised by the executive order highlight some of the broader hurdles that could face the big push to regulate AI, including defining the technology and identifying where the technology is actually being deployed. Notably, the Biden administration expects to issue a new AI-focused executive order soon.

Researchers at Stanford Law School, including Lawrence, who looked at implementation challenges for America’s AI strategy, and the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), both previously raised concerns about widespread lagging compliance with the Trump administration executive order among agencies. The White House did not respond to a request for comment. 

FedScoop reviewed how the more than 20 larger Chief Financial Officer Act agencies that the executive order applies to inventory their AI technology. The findings showed a lack of standardization across the government. While some agencies offer detailed inventories, others provide little information — and some appear to miss use cases disclosed publicly elsewhere.

There also isn’t a public deadline for agencies to update their inventories for the current fiscal year, making it difficult to track progress.

Among the findings: Several agencies — including the Transportation Security Agency and the Small Business Administration — didn’t include apparent use cases publicly disclosed elsewhere. Meanwhile, the Department of Transportation said it disclosed a ChatGPT use in “error,” which FedScoop previously reported. 

“We need to know the full universe of AI use cases that are effective today. And if we don’t have that, we’re not getting the full picture and we can’t really rest easy knowing that,” argues John Davisson, an attorney at EPIC. “The federal government’s having to play catch up with its own agencies by, now, asking them to disclose what AI systems they’re using. But things being as they are, step one is: Disclose what you’re using right now.”

The December 2020 executive order required agencies — except the Defense Department and those in the intelligence community — to inventory their current and planned AI uses, ensure uses were consistent with the order, share inventories with each other, and make non-classified and non-sensitive uses public on an annual basis. 

The order also directed the Federal Chief Information Officers Council (CIO Council) to create guidance for the inventories. The initial deadline the council set for agencies to share their first inventories with each other on the MAX Federal Community, a federal information-sharing website, was March 22, 2022. Agencies began publishing inventories online in June 2022, according to the National Artificial Intelligence Initiative’s webpage for the order.

The public guidance from the CIO Council for 2023, however, doesn’t include a date by which they should be submitted to the MAX system. In response to detailed questions about a deadline, expectations for public inventories, and compliance for the current year, the agency sent a brief summary of its responsibilities under the order. 

Key Documents

Other requirements established by the order to streamline the government-wide AI strategy appear to be running behind, too. 

The Office of Personnel Management was supposed to create an inventory of rotational programs focused on increasing the number of employees with AI experience at federal agencies and issue a report focused, also, on boosting AI expertise — both within a year of the 2020 EO. In response to a request for comment, the agency directed FedScoop to a memo focused on AI competencies meant to comply with the AI in Government Act, and said that once a data call the agency is working on with the Chief Human Capital Officers Council is complete, it can start compiling a report. 

Perhaps most notable is that several agencies seemed to exclude prominent examples of AI use cases — including those that do or could impact the public — from their inventories.

The inventory created for the Transportation Security Agency, for example, includes a single example of AI — a COVID-19 risk assessment algorithm program called Airport Hotspot Throughput  — but does not mention its facial recognition program, perhaps one of the agency’s most controversial deployments of machine learning-based technology. The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a FedScoop request for comment. 

HUD, meanwhile, maintains that it has no AI use cases — despite a report submitted to the Administrative Conference of the United States in February 2020 that identified a prototype chatbot at the agency. HUD similarly publicly identified the use of AI in a December 2020 report on its progress in implementing the 21st Century Integrated Digital Experience Act. In that report, HUD said the Federal Housing Administration would “expand communication channel offerings to include live chat, SMS/MMS, AI chatbot, and Intelligent IVR.” HUD didn’t respond to FedScoop requests for comment.

It is also unclear how agencies should distinguish between “planned” use cases, which agencies are supposed to include, and AI projects that are in the process of research and development, which are not supposed to be included. For example, several AI uses discussed in a July 2022 presentation for EPA’s homeland security office are not included in the EPA’s inventory because, a spokesperson explained, the “activities described in the presentation are still in development.” 

The Small Business Administration’s inventory, which is dated May 2023, states that after investigating its Federal Information Security Modernization Act (FISMA) systems, it did not discover any use cases. Still, the inventory does not include an AI use case for vetting loan applications. This application was discussed in an SBA announcement on the agency’s website, and in an Inc Magazine article, both published in May.  

“During phase one, our focus was on how SBA Program Offices were using AI (including ML + RPA) to support their own internal operational efficiencies,” an SBA spokesperson told FedScoop. 

SBA’s response reflects a larger trend: agencies used different methodologies to actually develop their inventories. Of the agencies that responded to FedScoop’s request for comment, some seemed to have determined their use cases by organizing a call out within their agencies — and asking various departments to share different ways they’re using AI.  

The Department of Labor found that most of its AI use cases have been managed by its AI Center of Excellence, and the agency found other examples by reaching out to business units. Other agencies, including the EPA, the General Services Administration and Education Department, conducted “data calls” to collect information about AI uses.

Information that officials included about each disclosed use case across the agencies varies widely. Some agencies list specific contact information for different AI use cases, like the Department of Commerce, or include information like when the use began and whether it was contracted work, as USAID did. Others simply list the name of each use case, a summary, and the entity responsible for it — that approach was taken by both the Department of State and Social Security Administration.

Relatedly, there doesn’t appear to be a standardized procedure for removing mentions. The Department of Transportation deleted a reference to the Federal Aviation Administration’s Air Traffic Office using ChatGPT for code-writing assistance after FedScoop inquired about the technology, saying the example was included in “error.” 

Agencies have also published their inventories on different timelines. Though the first inventories were expected to be shared with other agencies in March 2022 — per the initial CIO Council guidance — some agencies appear to have completed theirs later. For example, NASA’s fiscal year 2022 inventory is dated October 2022, the Department of Education said it completed its initial inventory in February 2023, and OPM appears to have only a 2023 inventory. 

At the same time, while a deadline for the current year isn’t clear, some agencies, such as the General Services Administration and Social Security Administration, said they already completed updates to their inventories for 2023. 

Several agencies, including the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Justice Department, and the Department of the Interior, did not provide responses to FedScoop inquiries about updating their inventories and their overall process. While NASA has a public inventory from 2022 and 2023, the agency’s inventory is not included on an AI.gov list of inventories-to-date.

Finally, it’s difficult to tell whether the executive order actually helped agencies sort through whether their AI use cases lined up with established principles — which was a critical goal of the executive order. 

Many agencies did not respond to a request for comment, but the Department of Labor, USAID, and USDA all said none of their use cases were inconsistent with the order. A State Department spokesperson said it was “employing a rigorous review process and making necessary adjustments or retirements as needed.” But it didn’t elaborate on what uses might need that adjustment or retirement. 

Ultimately, the patchwork approach to Executive Order 13960 is a reminder that senior leadership within both the White House and the federal agencies need the right staff, resources, and authority to implement AI–related legal requirements, argued Lawrence, from Stanford. 

For Davisson, the attorney from EPIC, it’s critical for agencies to have clarity about their obligations.

“Follow-through is really important. That applies both to the White House and to the agencies that are trying to execute on an executive order,” he added. “You can’t just put it on paper and assume that the job is done.”

Editor’s note, 8/4/23 at 3:00 p.m.: This piece was updated to note NASA’s 2023 AI use case inventory, which a NASA employee referenced in response to a request for comment for a subsequent FedScoop piece on a related topic.

The post The government is struggling to track its AI. And that’s a problem. appeared first on FedScoop.

Tom previously served in the Biden White House as special assistant to the president and deputy director of digital strategy before leaving in August 2022 to serve as head of Americas for the McCourt Institute, a digital governance organization, according to his Linkedin profile.

“Christian is an innovator. He helped develop a first-of-its-kind digital strategy in 2020 — one that has continued to be a key part of this Administration’s approach to reach Americans in new, creative, and authentic ways,” Biden said in a Friday statement.

Tom first joined the White House in 2021 after working on Biden’s presidential campaign as head of digital partnerships and serving as digital director of his inaugural committee, according to Linkedin. He’s previously worked for SVP, The Dodo, NowThis, Twitter and Google.

Tom replaces Rob Flaherty, who the White House announced was leaving his role in June.

In addition to Tom, Biden also announced Patrick Stevenson would be deputy assistant to the president and senior advisor for digital strategy, and Tericka Lambert would be promoted to deputy assistant to the president as the deputy director of digital strategy.

The post Christian Tom rejoins White House as head of digital strategy office appeared first on FedScoop.

The agency on May 12 announced it has begun accepting proposals from regions across the country for grants and designation as a Tech Hub, which will open up further opportunities to receive support from the federal program.

The Tech Hubs program was authorized by the CHIPS and Science Act and is intended to expand opportunities for the commercialization of innovative technology outside traditional industry hubs such as Austin, Boston, New York and San Francisco.

It is part of a push by the Biden administration to boost the competitiveness of the United States’ manufacturing industry and to create high quality jobs across the country.

According to Commerce, it will do this by providing funding to regions where it judges that investment can help to spur a self-sustaining, globally competitive technology industry over the next 10 years.

Each region applying for the funding will be required to have a partnership that includes one or more companies, a state development agency, worker training programs, a university and state and local government leaders. About 20 cities are expected to be designated as tech hubs.

In the initial stage of the program, regions will apply for strategy development grants or designation as tech hubs, or may apply for both.

Those regions selected for a second stage will then compete for funding to implement specific projects that could propel the region to become a self-sustaining, globally competitive Tech Hub.

Speaking at the SelectUSA Investment Summit earlier this month, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said: “When you talk about tech hubs in America, you probably think of Silicon Valley, New York City, Boston, Austin, Texas. But we want you to start thinking about places like Columbus, Ohio. Different places in the heartland of America, all of whom have leading edge technology in their own particular areas like medical devices, biotechnology, AI, quantum, robotics.”

She added: “We are going to be making investments, Public Private Partnerships in those geographies, which I think will really unleash an unbelievable torrent of entrepreneurship and capital opportunity,” she added.

Applicants have until August 15 to submit proposals to the Tech Hubs program.

The post Commerce launches first phase of $500 million Tech Hubs grant program appeared first on FedScoop.

According to a briefing note, the agency will invest $140 million in the new institutes, which will bring the total number of government institutes across the country researching the technology to 25.

The new institutes are intended to facilitate AI advances that are “ethical, trustworthy, responsible and serve the public group, as well as to drive breakthroughs in critical areas including climate, energy and cybersecurity.”

In addition, the White House said it will release draft policy guidance for federal agencies on the use of AI technology. The draft policy is expected to be issued in the summer and will be open for a period of public comment.

“This guidance will establish specific policies for federal departments and agencies to follow in order to ensure their development, procurement, and use of AI systems centers on safeguarding the American people’s rights and safety,” the Biden administration said in a briefing note.

The Biden administration also Thursday announced that it has secured commitments from major private sector developers of the technology to allow public assessments of existing generative AI systems. The public assessments would follow responsible disclosure principles and take place at the DEFCON 31 hacking conference in August. 

So far, the list of companies that have signed a commitment to public assessment of their technology includes Anthropic, Google, Hugging Face, Microsoft, NVIDIA, OpenAI, and Stability AI.

“This independent exercise will provide critical information to researchers and the public about the impacts of these models, and will enable AI companies and developers take steps to fix issues found in those models,” the Biden administration said.

Vice President Harris is expected later today to hold a meeting in Washington D.C. with executives from companies that have agreed to the public audit of their technology.

The latest AI initiatives from the Biden administration come after four agencies last week announced that they would use existing civil rights and consumer rights laws to take enforcement action against AI systems and automated systems that allow discrimination.

This came after the National Institute of Standards and Technology in January announced the launch of its AI Risk Management framework, which provides a voluntary risk-based guide for developing responsible AI.

In October, the White House issued an AI ‘Bill of Rights’ framework document, which sets out a rights-based approach to regulation of the technology, centered around five key principles: safe and effective systems, algorithmic discrimination protections, data privacy, notice and explanation, and human alternatives, consideration and fallback.

The post National Science Foundation to establish 7 new AI research institutes appeared first on FedScoop.

In its budget request, the White House appears to be focused on supporting federal agencies with pressing IT modernization needs and those that provide critical federal services in need of improved customer experience, according to budget documents released by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). 

“The Administration is focused on understanding where agencies are on their IT modernization journeys and making intentional investments at the right time to enable secure technology and innovation to advance from year to year,” the budget request explains.

Here are some of the highlights of major federal IT spending requested in Biden’s budget for 2024:

• $6.4 billion — $619 million above the 2023 enacted level — for the VA’s Office of Information Technology (IT) to continue upgrades to VA IT systems;
• $1.9 billion to continue modernizing the VA’s problem-ridden electronic health record (EHR) system to ensure veterans “receive world-class healthcare well into the future;”

• $3.1 billion for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), an increase of $145 million compared to last year. That includes $98 million to implement the Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act and $425 million to improve internal cybersecurity and analytical capabilities;
• $1.4 billion — a 10% increase from the 2023 enacted level — for Social Security Administration (SSA) IT system modernization and to invest in staff and other improvements at the SSA;

• $119 million to support GSA in continuing its work implementing priority digital programs such as the US Web Design System, Digital Analytics Program, Digital.gov, and Search.gov;

• $6.6 million for the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to modernize federal retirement services including expanding a pilot for online retirement applications and beginning to fund additional IT modernization initiatives akin to a case management system;

• $11 million for the Department of Health and Human Services to test ways to improve access to benefits for people facing financial shock by improving underlying eligibility data services and systems. It also requests $9 million for HHS and SSA to jointly pilot efforts to improve the Medicare enrollment experience; and

• $1 million for the United States Forest Service to pilot increased access to digital maps of Federal lands on Recreation.gov.

The White House said that the 2024 budget request also aims to tap into the strengths of cutting-edge technologies like digital identity and artificial intelligence (AI) while restructuring the security capabilities of software and cloud services used by the federal government. 

“The Administration is leading on the technology issues of the day, taking concrete steps to protect the Nation’s Federal systems from compromises, leveraging the benefits of digital identity and artificial intelligence while balancing risk, redefining security expectations for software and the cloud, and maximizing the impact of taxpayer dollars to deliver a better customer experience for the American people,” the budget request explained.  

Notably, Biden’s budget also proposes boosting cybersecurity-focused programs across a range of other federal agencies as well.

The post Biden 2024 budget calls for IT spending boosts at VA, Social Security, GSA and CISA appeared first on FedScoop.

The federal civilian agency modernization effort is key to strengthening the cybersecurity apparatus and resiliency of digital services provided by the government and will do so primarily by replacing legacy systems with more secure technology, “including through accelerating migration to cloud-based services,” the strategy report highlighted. 

“OMB will lead development of a multi-year lifecycle plan to accelerate FCEB [Federal Civilian Executive Branch] technology modernization, prioritizing Federal efforts on eliminating legacy systems which are costly to maintain and difficult to defend,” according to the new National Cybersecurity Strategy signed by President Joe Biden.

“The plan will identify milestones to remove all legacy systems incapable of implementing our zero trust architecture strategy within a decade, or otherwise mitigate risks to those that cannot be replaced in that timeframe,” the cyber strategy report said. 

A prior draft of the same cyber strategy report included a 10-year deadline for federal civilian agency technology modernization, but that deadline is now a “multi-year lifecycle plan,” according to a person familiar with the matter.

Agencies including Treasury and the Department of Homeland Security continue work to replace IT systems that provide a cybersecurity weak spot for government departments.

Around one-third of the digital applications the IRS runs are out of date, including some running software from 1959, which have raised fresh concerns about cybersecurity issues, workflow management and the agency’s ability to process hundreds of millions of U.S. tax returns, according to a U.S. Government Accountability Office audit from last month.

Homeland Security also has “longstanding” deficiencies with its legacy IT systems and decentralized operations, the agency’s Office of the Inspector General (IG) found in a 2020 investigation. 

The IG audit at the time found “significant operational challenges” with three key legacy systems in particular that could use improved oversight coupled with cloud migration and data center consolidation.

The post OMB will oversee multi-year plan to rid civilian agencies of legacy tech appeared first on FedScoop.

In his speech to Congress, Biden highlighted the work of his administration establishing the new medical research agency, which last year received a total of $2.5 billion in funding.

He said: “Together, we passed a law making it easier for doctors to prescribe effective treatments for opioid addiction … [l]aunched ARPA-H to drive breakthroughs in the fight against cancer,Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and so much more.”

Since its launch, the agency has focused on supporting research across four key workstreams as it seeks to replicate the R&D model of military research agency DARPA. The four workstreams are: health science futures, scalable solutions, proactive health and resilient solutions.

In addition, Biden highlighted plans at federal agencies including the VA to increase the availability of telehealth and technology-driven mental health services.

He added: “The VA is doing everything it can, including expanding mental health screenings and a proven program that recruits veterans to help other veterans understand what they’re going through and get the help they need.”

Biden during his first State of the Union last year announced a four-part Unity Agenda which focused on bipartisan issues that he plans to announce progress regarding during his speech this year: ending cancer as we know it; delivering on the sacred obligation to veterans; tackling the mental health crisis; and beating the opioid and overdose epidemic.

Editor’s note, 2/8/22: This article was updated to include quotes from the president’s address.

The post Biden touts ARPA-H launch in SOTU address appeared first on FedScoop.