The Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies have new marching orders: more quickly adopt and deploy artificial intelligence for national security.
US President Joe Biden signed the directive, part of a new national security memorandum, on Thursday. The goal is to ensure that the United States remains a leader in AI technology while preventing the country from falling victim to AI tools used by adversaries like China.
The memo, which calls AI a “breakthrough technology,” also sets out guidelines that the White House says are intended to prevent the use of AI to undermine civil liberties or human rights.
The new rules “will ensure that our national security agencies adopt these technologies in a way that aligns with our values,” a senior administration official told reporters, speaking about the memo on condition of anonymity before its official release.
The official added that if we fail to adopt AI more quickly, “we could put ourselves at risk of strategic surprise from our rivals.”
“Because countries like China recognize similar opportunities to modernize and revolutionize their own military and intelligence capabilities using artificial intelligence, it is particularly imperative that we accelerate adoption and use by our national security community cutting-edge AI,” the official said.
But some civil liberties advocates worry that the new guidelines lack sufficient safeguards.
“While recognizing the considerable risks of AI, this policy does not go far enough to protect us from dangerous and reckless AI systems,” according to a statement from Patrick Toomey of the American Civil Liberties Union.
“National security agencies must not be left to police themselves as they increasingly subject the citizens of the United States to powerful new technologies,” said Toomey, deputy director of the National Security Project of the ACLU.
The new guidelines build on an executive order issued last year that directed all U.S. government agencies to develop policies on how they plan to use AI.
They also seek to address issues that could hamper Washington’s ability to more quickly integrate AI into national security systems.
The provisions outlined in the memo call for a series of actions to protect supply chains that produce advanced computer chips critical to AI systems. It also calls for additional action to combat economic espionage that would allow U.S. adversaries or non-U.S. companies to steal critical innovations.
“We have to get this right, because there is probably no other technology that will be more critical to our national security in the years to come,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said. speaking to an audience at the National Defense University in Washington. THURSDAY.
“The stakes are high,” he said. “If we do not act more intentionally to seize our advantages, if we do not deploy AI more quickly and comprehensively to strengthen our national security, we risk squandering our hard-earned lead.
“We could have the best team but lose because we didn’t put them on the field,” he added.
While the memo prioritizes the implementation of AI technologies to safeguard U.S. interests, it also directs officials to work with allies and others to create a stable framework for the use of AI technologies to across the world.
“A lot of the national security memorandum actually lays out some basic principles,” Sullivan said, citing ongoing discussions with the G7 and AI-related resolutions at the United Nations.
“We must ensure that people around the world are able to reap the benefits and mitigate the risks,” he said.
