The Department of Defense has released an instruction establishing policy, outlining responsibilities and providing procedures for the appropriate use of artificial intelligence tools in performing DOD public affairs activities.
Sean Parnell, assistant to the secretary of defense for public affairs, approved the new DOD instruction on public affairs use of AI, which took effect on Monday.
The document specifies policy governance frameworks to ensure the responsible use of AI in support of public affairs activities across the department.
Guiding Principles for Use of AI in Public Affairs Activities
The DOD instruction outlines five guiding principles for the use of AI capabilities in public affairs activities: mission relevant; understand benefits and limitations; uphold legal and ethical standards and protect privacy and civil liberties; security and responsible AI use; and transparency and oversight of generative AI.
DOD components should develop and implement a plan for personnel to exercise oversight and approval of generative AI outputs before using generative AI capabilities to generate information for release to the public, according to the document.
The document states that the department’s visual information created by or edited with the help of generative AI for use in public affairs should cite the technology’s use.
Responsibilities of DOD Officials
The latest instruction details the responsibilities of the assistant DOD secretary for public affairs; DOD chief information officer; chief digital and AI officer; and other DOD officials regarding the use of AI tools in public affairs activities.
The DOD CIO, for instance, should provide policy, standards and guidance for the information enterprise and define meta requirements for AI-generated content to support interoperability and record management.
