Abhi Nemani

Excellent! We need the talent in government to not only implement this tech, but ensure decisionmakers make technically informed choices. The challenge will be both making use of that talent and retention. Already government IT is a revolving door, I'd wager in large part due to the inflexibility inherent to gov IT. Unfortunately, under the AI exec order our already expansive IT rule set will be loaded with additional restrictions. To attract, retain, and make use of talent we need to loosen the rules, enable development, and allow experimentation. https://lnkd.in/dc3jbJF2

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I'm keeping an open mind about the potential for AI to impact CBRN threats and generally encourage efforts to measure these issues in order to ground the conversation and minimize often-fantastical dooms-day scenarios. That said, evidence that AI is meaningfully changing current CBRN threat levels is lacking and probably overstated. Beyond this report, DHS must consider how to best prioritize its limited AI bandwidth. With a fixed budget, any excess money spent on mitigating or analyzing these hypotheticals nessesarily comes at the expense of other, evidence-backed priorities. Rather than over-invest in AI-CBRN issues, DHS should spend on the following: 1. Cybersecurity and other evidence-based challenges: while early days, there is indeed evidence that AI has changed the cyber game. In the past year spear phishing increase 1,200%, machine translation improved the quality of social engineering attacks, and state backed actors have used LLMs to generate operational malware. While not quite a crisis, this is a meaningful change that could portend a real challenge if capabilities continue to improve. Rather than chase CBRN 'what ifs,' resources should focus on this very real, evidence-backed challenge. 2. Preparing for the unknown: Its still early days, the tech is changing rapidly, and its uncertain what challenges will be the core AI issues of the coming years. Rather than overinvest resources on CBRN threats, DHS should invest in the agility and capacity needed to quickly identify and react to a range of unexpected, emergent challenges. The first step is state capcaity, DHS should focus on upskilling and hiring to build a work force that not only understands AI, but AI's intersection in a broad diversity of domains. Second is regulatory flexibility, DHS should actively analyze its rules to ensure it can act with minimal bureaucratic delay if we see a black swan AI development. Third is vigilance, DHS should foster the infrastructure, such as Information Sharing and Analysis Centers, needed to quickly identify unexpected changes in the threat environment. It is indeed worthwhile for the Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction office to analyze how AI could impact their work. Without evidence, however, this shouldn't become a preoccupation. As the DHS proceeds it should focus limited bandwidth on proven challenges and for all else, build the threat-agnostic capacity needed to act with agility.

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On July 31, GSA, along with other federal partners, is hosting an AI-themed Hackathon simultaneously in Washington, Atlanta, and New York City, focused on using AI to make government websites and digital services more efficient, user-friendly and responsive to the needs of users. A pool of more than $10,000 in prize money is up for grabs by competition winners. The event will also be sponsored by well-known industry partners, to be announced soon. Those interested in signing up for the Hackathon should be 18 years or older. Participants may register with a team of no more than five people, or as an individual. Individuals who wish to participate with a team, but do not have one created, can request to be added to one by GSA. Current federal employees are eligible to participate, but are not eligible to claim the monetary prizes being offered. https://lnkd.in/gv2tJJeY

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You might not know that LSWI has an ARC WA program to prepare companies for working with government contracts, learn about SBIRs, etc. Ask Kate Hoy And Richard Giersch for other services that the Washington APEX Accelerator and ARC WA offer. They hold regular open office hours for any Life Science questions. While not specific to Life Sciences you can join July 11 Thurston County Government’s lead APEX Accelerator advisor Grady Smith to explore the fundamentals of market research for government contractors. Learn the different platforms and tools available to successfully answer the question, “Who in the government buys what I sell?”. Participants will walk away with a completed Market Research Worksheet for your current (or future) business and gain knowledge in procurement data research and APEX Accelerators. https://lnkd.in/gJaHuESY

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An interesting look at how federal agencies can use existing authorities to regulate #AI. This joint report from Governing for Impact and the Center for American Progress looks at how agencies can take further action with AI. This report provides an overview and samples a number of federal agencies. Introduction: https://lnkd.in/eMAfa5nP White House / Subordinate Agencies: https://lnkd.in/eVpvxUVi Department of Labor: https://lnkd.in/ePSrhSmU Department of Education: https://lnkd.in/enHqGch8 Housing Regulators: https://lnkd.in/eF6UaU4k Financial Regulatory Agencies: https://lnkd.in/eKvFszm2

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✍️ USDC Fellows Trey Gordner and Chizobam Nwagwu published a guide for web and digital practitioners in government on why public policy matters when it comes to building user-centered products. The six-part crash course describes the different types of public policy and contextualizes four key federal policies that are crucial for web and digital teams across government: the Paperwork Reduction Act, Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the Privacy Act, and the Federal Information Security Modernization Act (FISMA). Check out the full guide on Digital.gov: https://lnkd.in/grZK8yfT

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CAP Webinar: Bolstering Trust in State and Local Government Tue, Apr 23, 2024 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM EDT Nearly half of Americans have a less than favorable view of the trustworthiness of #local #governments. reports Polco. That may be better than is the case with the federal government, but it’s still a somewhat sour statistic. Mistrust in states and localities impairs officials’ influence their ability to do their jobs well. More trust is empowering. Less is disabling. What are the roots of the current unfortunate state of affairs, and how can the things change for the better? This webinar by the American Society for Public Administration's Center for Accountability and performance will help to answer these questions and more. Panelists include: Barrett and Greene Inc., Marc Holzer, Nick Mastronardi, John O'Leary and Michael A. Pagano Register today by clicking here: https://lnkd.in/eewDy_UP Michelle Kobayashi William D Eggers Don Kettl Allen Lomax Maria Aristigueta Michael Jacobson John M. Kamensky Rakesh Mohan Cheriene Floyd Monica Croskey Antoinette Samuel Patria de Lancer Julnes, Ph.D.

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#DYK? You can uncover commitment data through the OGP Data Dashboard, find reform insights in the Open Gov Guide, learn about #opengov impact with the Skeptics Guide, and more through our Resources page. Ready? Learn more below 👇 https://lnkd.in/ehtSBJkp

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In the lead up to today's U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation Majority hearing on "The Need to Protect Americas' Privacy and the AI Accelerant," the U.S. Chamber of Commerce submitted a statement for the record indicating that future privacy legislation should be fully preemptive, reject private rights of action, and align data minimization requirements with the Consensus State Approach. With regard to AI, we urge a legal gap analysis before addressing issues in a risk-based manner. #privacy #AI #technology #preemption #patchwork https://lnkd.in/eKDc8eEW

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Check out the new report released by Socure and the Center for Digital Government titled “The State of Digital Identity in 2024.” According to the report, 63% of constituents surveyed want to conduct all or most transactions with state agencies online. Yet, only 13% felt very confident state agencies can detect and prevent identity fraud......and more than half of the state leaders surveyed said they rely on knowledge-based authentication as a method of verification, despite NIST no longer recognizing it as a valid method of verifying identities. The report also includes best practices for creating a modern identity system. Read Here   https://lnkd.in/eVaRGm6f

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(Our tutorials are out @ https://lnkd.in/gTVe5W9b - check us out!) "Yong Kiat, why haven't you been updating me on SENSE more regularly?" I wish I could update stakeholders and Senior Management on our products the way I did when I was a MOE or MOH policy officer - daily, or even weekly. But the truth is that in modern software engineering, realities and challenges change so frequently, that it's impossible for anyone to have a firm grasp on the product evolution other than the product team. And that's why the 21st century public servant has taken to LinkedIn to place strategic updates. Don't worry, we've been hard at work! As part of product launch, we've prepared twelve tutorial videos on how to operate SENSE, and its various LLM features! We translated prompt engineering techniques like context creation, context clarification and few-shot prompting into practical queries to ask on SENSE. Why tutorials? Well, a great product is nothing if we do not make it clear as day how our product should be used. Here at GovTech, we're not just interested in creating products for the public service. A digital savvy workforce is as much the people as the digital products they use - since LLMs are such a novel tool, we thought to place more emphasis on education and good product design, rather than just ride the AI product bandwagon. This will pave the way for, well, a sensible use of SENSE. Thanks for partnering us on our journey, and being with us during this exciting launch month for SENSE.

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This is part of a critical effort by  the  U.S. Department of Commerce to understand the data landscape and to prepare for the future. Our thinking about public data standards needs to shift to accommodate the current and anticipated capabilities of AI systems. While LLMs can make better use of unstructured data than earlier generations of software, they also have limitations on input size and output reliability that need to be taken into account. If you have opinions on these issues, comment below-- but even more important submit them to the RFI!

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This legal case does change everything: "The Federal Circuit rejected the notion that only direct offerors could challenge procurement decisions." Now suppliers (i.e. commercial technology companies!) can contest a government contract award where insufficient market research was conducted to see if a commercial solution could do the job vs. a bespoke, services-based solution. This just put a lot of legal power in the hands of commercial technology companies, and should make Federal Systems Integrators wary of NOT identifying commercial solutions FIRST before proposing they can build. #nationaldefense #executionmatters #onward

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Today, the Department of Homeland Security announced the establishment of the Artificial Intelligence Safety and Security Board to advise the secretary on critical infrastructure risks. While a worthwhile initiative, the design of our current critical infrastrucure policy structure is a fundamental disservice to such efforts. Today, critical infrastrucure encompasses 16 industrial sectors, an unwieldy 60% or more of the U.S. economy, and a grab bag of non-critical assets including casinos, ride share vehicles and the cosmetics industry. For a small committee of 22, this unwieldy scope will strain priorities, waste time, and distract focus from the core systems that really matter. Effectively securing our critical infrastrucure demand we set the priorities, shrink policy scope, and finally determine what is indeed the most critical and the most deserving of DHS’s limited resources. https://lnkd.in/eXdRveWB

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 My latest in Federal News Network discussing key priorities for the newly created Artificial Intelligence Safety and Security Board. 1. I might sound like a broken record - but the first step will be to prioritize targets. "Critical infrastructure" has massive scope and members should concentrate core systems including the grid, water, energy, transportation, and healthcare. Focusing on these essential areas will allow for deep consideration and effective action. 2. Prioritize preparation for cyber. Focus on analyzing existing regulations, identifying gaps, opportunities for harmonization, and ensuring government agencies are adequately resourced to address potential AI-related threats. While such threats have yet to emerge in force, policy should focus less on trying to avert specific threats and instead on preparing for unknown. We don't know what may come down the line but building the capacity for nimble analysis and well-resourced action will be key to future success. 3. Prioritize Diffusion. Recognize AI's potential to improve reliability and efficiency in critical infrastructure by studying bottlenecks, regulations, and research needs that hold back success. AI applications such as predicting wind power supply, detecting downed powerlines, and augmenting cyber defenses could significantly benefit these systems. By concentrating on these priorities and developing clear strategies, the AI Safety and Security Board can ensure much needed trust and maximum AI success in our nation's most essential systems, leading to a more prosperous future. https://lnkd.in/eRrZKSew

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