Tag Archives: AI

Steven Walker, director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, discussed some of DARPA’s programs at the Defense Programs Conference, the Department of Defense website reported Tuesday. Walker said some of the capabilities that DARPA works on to defend the country from existential threats and near-peer adversaries include cyber deterrence, tactical-boost guide program and hypersonic weapons. 

A senior defense official clarified that the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is prioritizing ethics and human guidance in a program that seeks artificial intelligence-based drones designed to distinguish enemies from civilians and allied troops in urban battles, Defense One reported Friday.

Rep. Will Hurd, R-Texas, intends to issue a national artificial intelligence strategy to guide the U.S. government in the development and ethical use of the technology, Nextgov reported Friday. The lawmaker said at IBM’s recent Think Gov conference that he wants to maintain the government’s AI ethics that reflect “Western liberal democracies.” Hurd emphasized that the government should avoid the methods China uses to develop AI-based technologies.

Navy Secretary Richard Spencer released a new report assessing the service’s cybersecurity posture. Spencer wrote in a letter published Tuesday that the Cybersecurity Readiness Review highlights the need to change the service’s data hygiene and business processes to protect data.

A team working on the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Lifelong Learning Machines program developed a new algorithm that allows machine learning systems the ability to continuously obtain new information and  automatically adapt a task without requiring system resets.

Valerie Browning, director of Defense Sciences Office at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, said DARPA will continue building smarter artificial intelligence-based tools to improve man-machine teaming across the Pentagon, Nextgov reported Friday. DARPA has launched the AI Next and AI Exploration campaigns to build technologies with human-like communication, logical reasoning and accelerate the application of machine learning in the field.

Federal Chief Information Officer and 2019 Wash100 Award winner Suzette Kent said the administration’s modernization efforts for 2019 include building public trust with new technologies supporting government operations, such as automation and artificial intelligence, Nextgov reported Wednesday. She said the effort comes as the government already made progress in updating policies supporting federal digital transformation. 

The Census Bureau hosted an event on Friday to provide federal agencies, companies and nongovernmental organizations the opportunity to demonstrate their technology platforms using data from various agencies, FCW reported Sunday. Several technologists showcased their artificial intelligence platforms, applications and open data-based tools at the demo day in response to the bureau’s Opportunity Project tech sprint. 

Will Roper, assistant secretary of the U.S. Air Force for acquisition, technology and logistics, told Wired in an interview published on Sunday about the service’s upcoming pitch day in New York and how it plans to set up contracts for startups within a day through credit card-based awards. “We’re going to start doing awards at $158,000 per transaction,” said Roper, a 2019 Wash100 winner.

Ed Burrows, robotic process automation program manager at the General Services Administration, has said GSA intends to increase the use of RPA within the agency with plans to merge the technology’s benefits with artificial intelligence, FedScoop reported Thursday. Burrows said Thursday at the Association of Government Accountants’ National Leadership Training conference that GSA implemented 12 RPA bots in the past year and plans to increase that number by twofold by the end of September.