Cyber Florida
The Florida Center for Cybersecurity (also known as Cyber Florida) was established at the University of South Florida in 2014 under Florida statute 1004.444. The goals of the center are to: position Florida as a national leader in cybersecurity and its related workforce through advancing and funding education, research, and development initiatives in cybersecurity; assist in the creation of jobs in the state’s cybersecurity industry and enhance the existing cybersecurity workforce; act as a cooperative facilitator for state business and higher education communities to share cybersecurity knowledge, resources, and training; seek out research and development agreements and other partnerships with major military installations to assist, when possible, in homeland cybersecurity defense initiatives; attract cybersecurity companies to the state with an emphasis on the defense, finance, health care, transportation, and utility sectors.
Cyber Florida is eager to provide comments to the National Science Foundation on the development of a national AI research and development strategic plan.
Comment
To secure a U.S. leadership globally in the artificial intelligence (AI) space, it is critical for the Federal government to recognize its coordinative role in research and development (R&D) that will bring together the innovation and stakeholder engagement necessary to succeed. The call by the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) National Coordination Office (NCO) to align this strategic plan with the AI Action Plan is prudent, especially as the call identifies “attention on areas that industry is unlikely to address”. Reflecting on the Florida Center for Cybersecurity’s comment on the AI Action plan, the strong recommendation is to ensure that the strategic plan emphasizes R&D that will 1) promote economic competitiveness, 2) provide clear policies on the use and inclusion of AI in government in different arenas, and 3) ensure national security is upheld in this bid to be #1 in the world for AI. The comment streamlines the nine strategies in the 2023 R&D Strategic Plan and provides a restructure that is more succinct, less redundant, and highlights where necessary advances and risks can be balanced to engage U.S. dominance in this arena.
Strategy 1
While an exponential increase in AI development can bring about U.S. leadership, it will be short lived if the government does not consider its fiduciary responsibility the citizens of the U.S. Just as we have seen an increase in this administration’s initiative to combat cyberbullying, responsible AI development and management should be a part of the government’s initiatives and bid to increase our AI power. Generative AI especially must come with a framework for implementation in an ethical manner, otherwise we will see similar challenges to the last technology boom and proliferation of issues that may not have been considered, such as the loss of control of the technology itself (Mikalef et al., 2022). This strategy should also encompass the ethical, legal and societal implications (formerly strategy 3), as a necessary part of public-private partnerships and ensuring secure systems (formerly strategy 4) that will reduce any national security concerns that have already emerged with the nexus of AI in our daily lives. The following actionable measures would be useful for this strategy:
• Create an Office within the Federal government for ethical AI regulation, that will ensure that the prioritization of human well-being and democratic principles are maintained
• Develop and enforce an AI Bill of Rights that will govern all AI R&D across academia, industry and government and regulate privacy and data governance within this space
• Develop copyright and intellectual property laws regarding AI data, frameworks and content to ensure R&D efforts are protected and secure
• Build a public-private partnership taskforce that will balance secure AI R&D while ensuring challenges such as privacy, bias detection and societal understanding are managed
• Enhance Federal government cybersecurity protocols to ensure AI technologies are protected from non-state actors
Strategy 2
Collaboration is an unsurprising element and strategic focus that must be maintained, as the whole purpose of this call is to ensure we have economic competitiveness and the flourishing of U.S. citizens. The public sector in the U.S. hinges on collaborative responses to all things ranging from defense to education to disaster response. Combining the 2023 R&D update’s strategies 2, 5, 8 and 9, this strategy highlights and promotes collaborative entity responses to developing AI capabilities. This primarily means: further emphasis on the human-AI interactions and decision-making abilities; fostering an environment where the AI datasets, tools, and resources are shared across different disciplines, which would foster public-private partnerships for R&D; and strategically identifying international actors that would benefit the AI R&D systems. While an insulated approach to growing the U.S.’s AI dominance may lend to proprietary data and environments, it would be difficult to compete on a global scale where others are building strategic partnerships in this arena—therefore, the international collaborative aspect is just as necessary for our nation to innovate and do it competitively. The following actionable measures would be useful for this strategy:
• Establish National Centers of Excellence for Human-AI Collaboration, and invite scholars and practitioners alike to visit and share their experiences in understanding and optimizing technologies in a synergistic environment
• Build training programs for governmental agencies that engage human-AI teams and prioritize human control and oversight for decision-making
• Establish a Central AI Data Resource Center for researchers’ access across academia, industry and government to engage collaboratively to improve AI tools and systems
• Support mechanisms of public-private partnerships, engaging National Science Foundation (NSF) to build programs that require community-engagement within R&D of different technologies
• Develop approach to international AI partnerships based on tiers of countries’ AI priorities, ranging from existing infrastructure for AI development, to budding AI frameworks, to those that need external support to engage in AI-related R&D, and engage each accordingly
• Establish protocols for safeguarding AI R&D with partners based on memos of understanding, policies that govern sharing, and security measures to protect data
Strategy 3
This strategy should be considerate of the most critical tangible element that needs to be assessed for the U.S. to obtain “global leadership”—what does the U.S. government mean by this? As national security is one of the larger considerations we make in our governmental decisions (Elliott & Soifer, 2022), ensuring that these AI systems are safe and secure should be the first priority, reflecting former strategy 6 on measurement of AI systems through standards and benchmarks. This would also include an idea of what the U.S. government will need to be ready for the next generation of AI, including the workforce (former strategy 7). This is critical, as strategy 3 has potential to be the most actionable for the Federal government. Ensuring the that the systems that are built in these R&D spaces
are secure and make space for the economic growth of our country would be the most significant achievement capable for the government. The following actionable measures would be useful for this strategy:
• Lean on academic and practitioner professionals that have consistently worked with AI over decades, to build a framework for the goals, gaps, deliverables and standards for AI’s use in different areas (e.g., defense, education, public service provision)
• Identify the most critical security protocols that can be strengths and weaknesses of AI systems in cybersecurity, intelligence, detection and military use
• Engage various Federal governments that would utilize AI in security spaces to fund and collaborate with institutes that utilize research and practice initiatives to engage in AI robustness, interoperability and safety
• Invest in higher education institutions that have been incorporating AI within their teaching, research and embedding it within their operations
• Build a plan for K-12 in partnership with the Department of Education, scaffolding AI learning for students (starting from basic understanding of AI to working with AI applications and systems)
• Work with the Department of Labor to engage higher education institutions and vocational programs to engage AI for workforce readiness
• The Federal government’s bid to engage in AI R&D is not novel, nor is it in a vacuum as we compete with intelligence around the world in this race. These three strategies can streamline the U.S. government’s role in assisting public and private in rapid R&D within the AI space, while being mindful of the long-term repercussions, and how AI can be embedded in government for a modernized future in public service. While some of these action items can be combined, the overarching purpose of this comment is to urge the Federal government to build the necessary protocols now within the strategic plan that will be beneficial for the future of AI R&D for the U.S.
References
Elliott, D., & Soifer, E. (2022). AI technologies, privacy, and security. Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence, 5, 826737.
Mikalef, P., Conboy, K., Lundström, J. E., & Popovič, A. (2022). Thinking responsibly about responsible AI and ‘the dark side’of AI. European Journal of Information Systems, 31(3), 257-268.
Yigitcanlar, T., Li, R. Y. M., Beeramoole, P. B., & Paz, A. (2023). Artificial intelligence in local government services: Public perceptions from Australia and Hong Kong. Government Information Quarterly, 40(3), 101833.
Author
Ratna
B. Dougherty, PhD
Assistant Professor, School of Public Affairs
University of South Florida
Contact Information
Ernie Ferraresso eferraresso@cyberflorida.org 813 974 1869
Director Cyber Florida