Alejandro Mayorkas, secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, speaks throughout a brand new convention in Brownsville, Texas, U.S., on Thursday, Aug. 12, 2021.
Veronica G. Cardenas | Bloomberg | Getty Images
WASHINGTON – The Department of Homeland Security will set up a brand new activity power to look at how the federal government can use synthetic intelligence expertise to guard the nation.
DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas introduced the duty power Friday throughout a speech at a Council on Foreign Relations occasion. It comes as standard AI instruments like ChatGPT have captured the general public’s consideration and triggered hopes and fears about the way it may be used sooner or later. Mayorkas’ announcement reveals that the Biden administration is searching for methods to embrace AI’s potential advantages, whereas considering by way of the potential harms.
“Our department will lead in the responsible use of AI to secure the homeland,” Mayorkas mentioned, whereas additionally pledging to defend “against the malicious use of this transformational technology.”
He added: “As we do this, we will ensure that our use of AI is rigorously tested to avoid bias and disparate impact and is clearly explainable to the people we serve.”
Many tech leaders have raised issues in regards to the fast growth of so-called generative AI fashions, fearing that their development and potential harms will outpace the flexibility to enter affordable safeguards. But on the similar time, tech corporations creating superior AI fashions and policymakers acknowledge the U.S. is in a fast-moving race towards China to create the very best AI.
Mayorkas gave two examples of how the duty power will assist decide how AI might be used to fine-tune the company’s work. One is to deploy AI into DHS methods that display cargo for items produced by pressured labor. The second is to make use of the expertise to raised detect fentanyl in shipments to the U.S., in addition to figuring out and stopping the circulation of “precursor chemicals” used to supply the harmful drug.
Mayorkas requested Homeland Security Advisory Council Co-Chair Jamie Gorelick to review “the intersection of AI and homeland security and deliver findings that will help guide our use of it and defense against it.”
The announcement provides to the federal government’s efforts to beef up its AI capabilities. On Wednesday, U.S. Central Command, which oversees the nation’s mission within the Middle East and northern Africa, introduced it had employed former Google AI Cloud Director Andrew Moore to function its first advisor on AI, robotics, cloud computing, and information analytics. CENTCOM mentioned Moore would advise its leaders on making use of AI and different applied sciences to its missions and assist with innovation activity forces.
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