The accompanying order says that while the government “should be hesitant to regulate the functionality of AI models in the private marketplace, in the context of federal procurement, it has the obligation not to procure models that sacrifice truthfulness and accuracy to ideological agendas.” Image: Tada Images/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffA wide-ranging White House action plan on artificial intelligence includes further encouragement for federal agencies to adopt it, while an accompanying executive order meanwhile focuses on “preventing woke AI in the federal government.”
The action plan, a follow-up to an earlier executive order, addresses topics such as accelerating AI innovation, building out an AI infrastructure including speeding up the permitting process, and considerations regarding exports and international relations. Using language similar to that of directives dating to the Biden administration, it touts AI as a tool for the government to “serve the public with far greater efficiency and effectiveness.”
“Use cases include accelerating slow and often manual internal processes, streamlining public interactions, and many others. Taken together, transformative use of AI can help deliver the highly responsive government the American people expect and deserve,” it says.
Recommended general policies include formalizing the Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer Council as the primary venue for interagency coordination and collaboration on AI adoption; creating an AI procurement toolbox to facilitate uniformity across the federal enterprise to the greatest extent practicable; and launching a program to quickly transfer advanced AI capabilities and use cases between agencies.
Recommended personnel-related policies include creating “a talent-exchange program designed to allow rapid details of federal staff to other agencies in need of specialized AI talent”; and mandating that agencies ensure to the maximum extent practicable “that all employees whose work could benefit from access to frontier language models have access to, and appropriate training for, such tools.”
The accompanying order says that while the government “should be hesitant to regulate the functionality of AI models in the private marketplace, in the context of federal procurement, it has the obligation not to procure models that sacrifice truthfulness and accuracy to ideological agendas.”
It tells agencies to procure only those models that “prioritize historical accuracy, scientific inquiry, and objectivity, and shall acknowledge uncertainty where reliable information is incomplete or contradictory” and do not “intentionally encode partisan or ideological judgments” in their output, “unless those judgments are prompted by or otherwise readily accessible to the end user.”
It further requires that procurement contracts include terms holding vendors accountable for certain costs if contracts are terminated due to noncompliance.
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