Lynne Parker, a former AI official in the Trump and Biden White Houses, told FedScoop in a recent interview that OMB could enhance its parameters for agency AI inventories by focusing on what those disclosures were intended to achieve: Improving public transparency, helping agencies see what others in the government are using, and informing policy guidance on responsible use of AI.

For example, Parker suggested structuring a call to agencies “to put use cases into various different kinds of buckets or to ask key questions that are important for informing the development of that policy guidance.”

“By thinking through those ultimate purposes, then you can structure the information that you’re requesting from the agencies such that it can actually serve those purposes,” said Parker, who is currently associate vice chancellor and director of the AI Tennessee Initiative at the University of Tennessee Knoxville.

Her comments come as OMB prepares to release guidance on federal government use of AI as part of its efforts to regulate and harness the capabilities of the budding technology. That guidance was expected to be released for public comment over the summer, according to a May 2023 announcement, but has yet to be published.

AI inventories are required to be published annually and publicly under a Trump-era order (EO 13960), but those disclosures so far have varied widely. Stanford’s RegLab found widespread lagging compliance in the first year of agencies’ use case inventories, and FedScoop reporting has found inconsistencies in reporting have persisted. 

Those inconsistencies include variations in format, timeline, and level of detail, along with notable use case omissions. These issues have caught the attention of some members of Congress and were recently discussed in a House Oversight subcommittee hearing on federal agency use of AI.

Parker, who led the interagency committee that drafted the order, said the “spotty” and “inconsistent” nature of the disclosures is due in part to the timing of the executive order — which came in the late days of the Trump administration — as well as new priorities. 

“With any administration, you come in with a lot of different priorities,” Parker said, adding that the Biden administration’s priorities required a lot of work by OMB and agencies in other areas. “They simply, I don’t think, had the cycles, nor were they being messaged by the administration that things like this executive order were a priority.”

The order, among other stipulations, created a framework for how the U.S. government should approach the nascent technology and established requirements for additional guidance and transparent disclosure of AI being used in the government through use case inventories. The inventories are required of all agencies except for the Defense Department, intelligence community agencies, and independent regulatory agencies. 

Although the Federal CIO Council, which is led by OMB officials, did come up with guidance for the first year, Parker said, the effort “was, frankly, trying to check a box” and focused more on trying to have something reported, “as opposed to thinking through how the information that’s reported could be useful.” 

The CIO Council’s most recent version of the guidance was more detailed than it was in the first year, which has helped some agencies. The Department of Energy, for example, said clarification from OMB on what constitutes a use case and what is considered research and development — which doesn’t have to be reported — allowed the agency to more comprehensively compile its inventory.

OMB didn’t respond to a FedScoop request for comment for this story. A White House official, however, recently told lawmakers on a House Oversight subcommittee that the inventories are important.

“The initiative to start cataloging those use cases was an important one and it’s very much work in progress,” said Arati Prabhakar, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. With respect to coming OMB guidance, she also said: “The Office of Management and Budget is working in a very focused manner on what they clearly understand is a priority.”

Parker pointed to other actions the order mandated that don’t appear to have been completed by OMB and Office of Personnel Management, too. The former was supposed to have issued a roadmap for their planned policy guidance on how to implement the principles the order outlined, and the latter was required to inventory rotational programs and make recommendations on how to increase the number of government employees with AI expertise.

OMB also didn’t respond to a request for comment on whether its forthcoming AI guidance will address that requirement from the order. OPM told FedScoop in July it could start compiling its report after a data call was complete and pointed to a memo on AI competencies for federal workers. It didn’t respond to a request for comment on the status of that work.

The coming OMB guidance, Parker said, is paramount – even more than inventories of use cases. “I think having consistent policies for how government shall ensure that those principles from the executive order have held – I think that is kind of more fundamental,” Parker said.

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A 2020 Trump administration executive order ordered agencies to annually create inventories of their planned and current artificial intelligence use cases and make a version of that inventory public. But those inventories have lacked consistency. 

Ahead of the House Oversight Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Government Innovation hearing, a committee spokesperson confirmed that staff were aware of a major Stanford research paper outlining a range of problems with these inventories and compliance with the executive order, as well as ongoing FedScoop reporting analyzing the CIO Council’s evolving guidance and agencies’ inconsistent approach to the disclosures. 

The spokesperson said the committee expects these topics to come up during the hearing, which will feature three speakers: White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Arati Prabhakar, Defense Department Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Officer Craig Martell, and Department of Homeland Security Chief Information Officer Eric Hysen.

“The hearing is a great opportunity both for Congress to communicate the importance of consistent and accurate AI use case inventories and for the executive branch to communicate what it may need, if anything, from Congress to publish inventories as required by EO 13960 and the FY 2023 NDAA,” Christie Lawrence, one of the co-authors of the report and an affiliate at Stanford’s RegLab, told FedScoop in advance of the hearing.

She added: “Since Stanford’s RegLab first published its implementation assessment in December 2022, senior-level attention on these inventories seems to have increased, with more agencies publishing inventories and the CIO Council publishing more detailed guidance.” 

The inventories have attracted attention as Congress ramps up its effort to both regulate and support the development of the technology through new legislative proposals. The White House is also expected to announce a new executive order focused on AI. And on top of that, the Office of Management and Budget is supposed to release new guidance for federal agencies using the technology.

“It’s been very spotty and very inconsistent. And part of that is certainly the timing of the executive order was unfortunate being at the end of one administration,” Lynne Parker, a former deputy US chief technology officer who helped craft the executive order and AI inventory requirement, told FedScoop in a recent interview. 

“The CIO Council did come up with some basic reporting,” she said. “It was, frankly, trying to check a box in the sense of, ‘let’s make sure that we have something reported,’ as opposed to thinking through how the information that’s reported could be useful.”

The Stanford analysis, which was published in December 2022 by the university’s RegLab, noted myriad problems with agency compliance with the executive order, including among large agencies with previously-known AI use cases. Many agencies, they noted at the time of publication, had failed to publish even their first inventory. 

Agencies have also taken varied approaches to completing their inventories. For example, the Department of Energy told FedScoop that a surge in use cases documented in its updated inventory was due to “enhanced” guidance from the White House. OMB, meanwhile, has acknowledged issues with the reporting process. 

After FedScoop asked about a ChatGPT use case attributed to the Federal Aviation Administration’s office, the Department of Transportation quickly removed reference to the technology. The National Archives and Records Administration published its use case list publicly after FedScoop asked the agency and OMB about its decision to release the list only on the Max.gov portal, a federal government information-sharing platform. 

The hearing may shine more of a light on the state of these inventories. 

“[E]xecutive branch officials can spotlight positive developments, including ways in which agencies are using AI to better realize their missions, and concretely identify obstacles that may impede consistent reporting and broader strategic deliberation about how agencies develop, procure, and deploy trustworthy AI,” noted Lawrence. 

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According to a White House spokesperson, Ross took up the role earlier on May 16 after previously serving as U.S. chief data scientist, a post she assumed in November last year.

Following her new appointment, the Biden administration has named Dominique Duval-Diop as incoming U.S. Chief Data Scientist. She is a former American Association for the Advancement of Science fellow, and was previously U.S. deputy chief data scientist.

Ross’s appointment follows the departure of Lynne Parker, who in August last year stepped down from the dual-hatted position of deputy chief technology officer and director of the National AI Initiative Office at the White House.

The U.S. deputy chief technology officer for tech capacity role sits within the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the White House, and Ross will be tasked with with enabling governments at the federal, state, local, tribal and territorial levels to be more open, effective and equitable.

Ross is a fellow-in-residence at Georgetown University’s Beeck Center for Social Impact and Innovation, where she supports the Schmidt Futures data collaboratives portfolio, which focuses on issues ranging from disaster response and opioids/addiction to the decennial census and climate change.

Prior to this, Ross worked in a data leadership role at the nonprofit New America and also spent a period in government working as a senior adviser at the Office of Management and Budget and as a Presidential Innovation Fellow.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment about her appointment.

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Speaking at a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing examining the use of AI by government departments, Lynne Parker proposed also that Congress require federal agencies to appoint a chief AI officers who would take full responsibility for oversight of the technology at each agency.

According to Parker, an AI officers’ council would be “responsible for coordinating these activities across all the federal government with an intent of prioritizing this AI activity across the government and providing leadership,” and would help on tackling the tech workforce shortage by identifying the areas in which agencies have a most urgent need for staff.

The former official said there was an acute need for a central coordinating body because of agencies’ such varied missions, and said it could be led by the Office of Management and Budget and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, with support from the General Services Administration.

Parker added: “We’re suffering right now from a lack of leadership and prioritization on these AI topics, and one quick way legislatively to address this is to appoint AI chief officers who are given the responsibility and resources to oversee the uses of AI and to develop strategies for their use of AI within their agencies.”

Parker was the founding director of the National Artificial Intelligence Initiative Office and also held the role of deputy federal chief technology officer until last October.

Speaking to FedScoop after the hearing, Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee Chairman Gary Peters, D-MI, expressed an openness to Parker’s two ideas.

He said: “It’s something we’ve got to look at, we’ll certainly try to examine who should be responsible, and what sort of oversight is appropriate within each agency, so yes that’s a potential idea”,” Senator Gary Peters, D-MI., Chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee told FedScoop.”

Peters added: “So there’s certainly growing consensus on all the items you mentioned, transparency, without question, workforce shortages without question, having some clear lines of accountability and oversight without question, but then putting the details on specific pieces of legislation is always more difficult. We have to be thoughtful, deliberative and take our time and not rush to any conclusions.”

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In the role, she will work to ensure that U.S. government policy is informed by tech and data expertise and will also act as a principal adviser to the National AI Initiative Office. Mulligan takes over from Lynne Parker, who last year stepped down from the post to return to academia.

While serving in the White House, she will be on leave from UC Berkeley, and in the new role will draw on her academic research, which focuses on how regulatory choices shape privacy and online content moderation practices and definitions of emerging “responsible AI” practices.

At Berkeley, she is a professor in the School of Information and a faculty director of the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology.

“I’m excited to bring the insights I’ve garnered through my interdisciplinary research and my decades of experience working on internet policy issues to assist the Biden Administration in advancing the privacy and equity priorities set out in the Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights,” Mulligan said in a statement.

The National AI Initiative Office, launched in January 2021 under President Donald Trump, is responsible for coordinating artificial intelligence research and policymaking across government, industry and academia. It is focused on implementing a national AI strategy as directed by the National Defense Authorization Act of 2021 to increase research investment, improve access to computing and data resources, set technical standards, build a workforce, and engage with allies.

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In an exclusive interview with FedScoop, Parker said the federal government is well aware of the potential pitfalls of AI and has actively worked to mitigate its harms while trying to use the technology to solve major societal challenges. The roboticist is one of the only technology officials to serve under both President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy over the past four years.

“There has been a big increase in awareness and understanding of the potential harms that AI use might present to people in different contexts, whether it be decisions about access to resources, such as housing or student loans, or whether it be something like judicial sentencing. The inappropriate uses of these technologies that can cause harm are well known,” said Parker, speaking with FedScoop earlier this month before leaving her post at the National AI Office.

“So I think, the question now is, how to make sure that we anticipate challenges or problems that might come along and have an appropriate implementation approach that considers what the risks of AI are and appropriate steps to ensure those harms do not happen or that risks are mitigated,” Parker added.

The National AI Initiative Office, launched in January 2021 under President Donald Trump, is responsible for coordinating artificial intelligence research and policymaking across government, industry and academia. It is focused on implementing a national AI strategy as directed by the National Defense Authorization Act of 2021, to increase research investment, improve access to computing and data resources, set technical standards, build a workforce, and engage with allies.

Parker, who has a doctorate in computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, previously spent over 20 years teaching engineering at the University of Tennessee, said the creation of an AI risk management framework has been a major part of her work for the AI initiative that she expects this will reduce fear around the technology.  

She said the National Institute of Standards and Technology is currently drafting such a framework that will lay out a common voluntary approach that federal government agencies and private sector companies can use in order to find a structured way to think about AI risk and find ways to reduce potential harms.

Parker, who also helped lead the National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource (NAIRR) task force, addressed fears associated with the task force which works with Big Tech companies like Google and IBM to provide computational infrastructure and data.

The purpose of NAIRR is to use make computational resources from wealthy companies like Google and IBM available to a larger group of underserved and underrepresented communities in academia and the small business world in order to allow them to innovate and create AI software and tools.

However, there have been concerns that Big Tech companies could use the NAIRR partnership to benefit themselves by capturing the data and information of those who use their computational resources, thereby creating security and privacy risks, which consumers have faced frequently in the past decade.

Parker said this would not be an issue because of safeguards the U.S. government has put in place.

“No, the Big Tech companies, would not have access to any of that, they’re purely providing a computational service to the research community, but they would not have the ability to tap in, in a side channel to what the researchers and others are doing with it,” Parker said.

Parker, ​​who also previously served at the National Science Foundation as division director of information and intelligent systems, said she’s always been focused on bipartisan and bicameral ways of using AI to improve the government and society at large.

“I’m hoping that my legacy is showing how to lead in the development of nonpartisan science, the AI policies and initiatives and initiatives that has long lasting positive impact for the nation and around the world,” said Parker.

“I’ve worked to create a future where AI is used responsibly, to improve the quality of life of all Americans and address global challenges, to increase our nation’s economic competitiveness and advance our national security,” she added.

When asked about her experience working under President Trump versus President Biden and their respective approaches to AI, she said that although some differences did exist, there were many more areas of commonality in their approach. 

She highlighted that both administrations were highly supportive of advances in AI and their actions to push the technology forward were more important than the political process of how decisions were made in each administration.

While Parker, 61, spends much of her working her professional life immersed in some of the most advanced examples of AI, she remains fascinated by the practical ways the technology has changed our everyday experience—including how we drive.

“As a roboticist, I have been delighted to see all of the driver-assist capabilities that have now become commonplace in our cars.  Capabilities like lane keeping assist systems are very much like the early programs I had my students code for robots that would do wall following. And adaptive cruise control is very similar to getting robots to follow each other at the right distance,” Parker said.

“It has been rewarding to me to see that these technologies have been improved enough to be features on most new cars you buy today. Now, in my case, I lean on the thrifty side, so until recently I’ve been driving a 14-year-old vehicle that hasn’t had these features.  I could only appreciate the driver assist features when I got a rental car. But just recently, I got a new car and the most important features to me in selecting that car were these driver-assist capabilities.  I’m now very much looking forward to enjoying them on a regular basis,” she added.

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She is expected to return to academia as a professor within the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. It’s not clear yet who will replace Parker within the White House’s AI office.

“I am this week concluding my 6-year service in the U.S. Government – four years in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (2018-2022) and two years at the National Science Foundation (2015-2016),” Parker said in an announcement on LinkedIn regarding her departure Monday morning.

“My goal has always been to advance #AI initiatives and policy to the benefit of the American people, and indeed our world.  I am proud of the accomplishments we have made over three Administrations, together with colleagues from across government, academia, and industry,” she added.

Parker, along with Winter Casey, was named deputy U.S. chief technology officer in November 2019, and previously served as assistant director for artificial intelligence within the Trump administration.

Parker previously spent over 20 years teaching at the University of Tennessee, including multiple top leadership roles within the Tickle College of Engineering. She also previously served at the National Science Foundation as Division Director of Information and Intelligent Systems.

She started her career at Oak Ridge National Laboratory as a distinguished research and development staff member. She received her PhD in Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 

The National AI Initiative Office, launched in January 2021 under President Donald Trump, is responsible for coordinating artificial intelligence research and policymaking across government, industry and academia. It is focused on implementing a national AI strategy as directed by the National Defense Authorization Act of 2021, to increase research investment, improve access to computing and data resources, set technical standards, build a workforce, and engage with allies.

An OSTP spokesperson said: “Dr. Parker has been a key leader in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the National Artificial Intelligence Initiative Office’s efforts to ensure the United States remains a world-leader in AI innovation and to equitably expand access to AI resources for researchers around the country.”

They added: “As envisioned in the Congressional statute creating the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, experts join OSTP for short stints in government service to bring expertise in fast-changing technologies and industries. Dr. Parker was on a ‘loan’ through the Intergovernmental Personnel Act for the last four years and she’ll now return to the University of Tennessee, Knoxville in time for the 2022-2023 academic year.”

Editor’s note: This story was updated to include comment from the Office of Science and Technology Policy.

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A NAIRR should be a federated cyber-infrastructure ecosystem accessed via an integrated portal and run by a nongovernmental management entity, as well as operations and oversight advisory bodies, per the report.

“AI is transforming our world, and a growing resource divide between those who have access to the resources needed to pursue cutting-edge AI and those who don’t threatens our nation’s ability to cultivate a research community and workforce that reflects America’s rich diversity,” Lynne Parker, director of the National AI Initiative Office and task force co-chair, said on a press call. “It could also prevent us from harnessing AI in a manner that benefits all Americans.”

The National AI Initiative Act of 2020 directed the task force to develop recommendations and an implementation plan by December 2022. Obtaining public feedback on the interim report is the next step toward finalizing a NAIRR roadmap.

“The researchers that will be using the resource are the people that it’s very important for us to hear from,” Parker said. “This resource is intended for the research community, primarily academia.”

That’s especially true of people who the NAIRR would enable to enter the AI research-and-development space, but also startups that have received federal grants through the Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer programs, Parker added.

Within its vision the task force recommends that multiple agencies receive funding to support NAIRR researchers and management, with their representatives cooperating on oversight.

Both government and the private sector should make computational systems, data and testbeds available through the NAIRR user access portal.

Systems should consist of on-premise and commercial computational services like conventional compute; computing clusters; and high-performance, cloud and edge computing.

The NAIRR should incentivize contribution of high-quality data for AI R&D from a network of trusted providers while establishing a value system, search and discovery, and an access model if sensitive and confidential data are ultimately permitted.

AI testbeds and test datasets should be cataloged and made accessible.

The task force further recommends that users be able to access software training through the portal, receive help desk and solutions consulting, and join communities of practice for peer-to-peer support.

A NAIRR should rely on a zero-trust architecture, routine monitoring and a dedicated staff of experts for security along with resource management standards devised by external advisory groups. Researchers should receive hands-on security training and have their access to NAIRR resources subject to use agreement, according to the report.

Whatever NAIRR management entity the government goes with should first prove research will be approved, performed and reviewed with privacy, civil rights and liberties in mind — pulling from existing agency policies. An ethics review process should be established for both resources and research.

“Once we enable the research, we want to monitor it and in a transparent way make sure that these things continue to be addressed as the research proceeds and in the research results that come out of it,” said Manish Parashar, director of the Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure at the National Science Foundation and task force co-chair. “So a big part of our thinking is transparency and oversight in the process.”

The task force also recommends users complete regular ethics training modules before accessing NAIRR resources, and that resources be allocated for the research of AI trustworthiness and the development of best practices for working responsibly with data and models.

Parashar said he couldn’t name specific examples of nongovernmental management entities handling computing infrastructure currently, but there are examples for large, shared instrumentation like the National Science Foundation (NSF) major facilities’ structure.

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and NSF will hold a public listening session on the task force’s findings on June 23, and people have until June 30, to respond to their request for information on the interim report.

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A few expected respondents asked for more time, citing the depth of questions in the request for information (RFI) and summer vacation conflicts. So the deadline was moved to Oct. 1, according to a Federal Register notice posted Wednesday.

The 2021 National Defense Authorization Act directed the task force to create a roadmap for a sustainable resource that equitably meets the computational and privacy-preserving data needs of AI researchers.

“Given that we want to hear from as many folks as possible — we’d really like a broad and diverse set of perspectives among the responses — we felt it best to extend the RFI response date by a month,” Erwin Gianchandani, who co-chairs the task force as the National Science Foundation‘s representative, told FedScoop. “We believe that timeline will maximize responses while still allowing us to digest the responses and use them to inform the task force’s discussions and deliberations.”

The NAIRR blueprint is expected to outline campus, cloud, high-performance and supercomputing assets; data and data governance; educational tools and services; user interfaces; and privacy — all while ensuring researcher access regardless of gender, background, expertise or any other demographic.

By giving academics and startups, in particular, more time to respond to the RFI, the task force is ensuring that the diverse array of researchers it wants using NAIRR inform that blueprint.

“It’s not really about the big tech companies that already have lots of computational infrastructure and data,” said Lynne Parker, the other co-chair and White House Office of Science and Technology Policy representative. “I think it’s fairly easy to agree that this resource is not intended for them, even though they may indeed have some great ideas and are absolutely willing to engage to help in the design of a good resource.”

Google and IBM are still two of the four companies representing industry on the task force, along with four universities and four agencies that also include the Department of Energy and National Institute for Standards and Technology.

The task force held its first of four public meetings this year in July, with the next one scheduled for Aug. 30 and four more slated for next year. In between working groups will meet for deeper dives into specific aspects of the NAIRR blueprint.

An interim report is due May 2022 and the blueprint November 2022 to the president and Congress, though it will fall to others to actually implement the plan.

The blueprint must be scalable, easy to use, affordable — as in not cost billions of dollars — and sustainable.

“It [has to be] adaptable, in that we’re able to add new resources or keep the computational resources up to date,” Parker said. “Maybe there’s some new kinds of computation, maybe a new AI chip that we want to provide lots of people access to use and explore their research ideas on, and so we want to be able to have the resource be adaptable and have these new, different kinds of architectures.”

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AI.gov features recent AI reports and news across agencies; details the initiative’s six strategic pillars; archives related legislation and executive orders; and explains the structure of not only the office but various AI committees, working groups and task forces.

The website is part of the government’s push to increase transparency around every agencies’ work with cognitive technologies and develop trustworthy AI, where people believe in the reliability of the algorithms involved. Office Director Lynne Parker announced the site in a post on LinkedIn.

The most recent publication on the site is the National Security Commission on AI’s final report released March 1, which found that the U.S. remains unprepared for the “assertive role” government must play scaling public resource to ensure the country achieve global dominance in the sector.

Parker maintained her role as deputy federal chief technology officer during the presidential transition to the Biden administration and has been quiet about NAIIO‘s work up to this point. She’s currently assisted by four policy advisers in her capacity as the office’s director.

The National AI Initiative Act of 2020 became law on Jan. 1, 2021, creating a governmentwide program to accelerate AI research and development in ways that improve the U.S. economy and national security. NAIIO sits within the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

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