[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.A.S.C. No. 117-7]
FINAL RECOMMENDATIONS OF
THE NATIONAL SECURITY COMMISSION
ON ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
__________
JOINT HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CYBER, INNOVATIVE
TECHNOLOGIES, AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
MEETING JOINTLY WITH THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND REFORM
[Serial No. 117-7]
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
HEARING HELD
MARCH 12, 2021
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
44-410 WASHINGTON : 2021
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COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CYBER, INNOVATIVE TECHNOLOGIES, AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS
JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island, Chairman
RICK LARSEN, Washington ELISE M. STEFANIK, New York
SETH MOULTON, Massachusetts MO BROOKS, Alabama
RO KHANNA, California MIKE GALLAGHER, Wisconsin
WILLIAM R. KEATING, Massachusetts MATT GAETZ, Florida
ANDY KIM, New Jersey MIKE JOHNSON, Louisiana
CHRISSY HOULAHAN, Pennsylvania, STEPHANIE I. BICE, Oklahoma
Vice Chair C. SCOTT FRANKLIN, Florida
JASON CROW, Colorado BLAKE D. MOORE, Utah
ELISSA SLOTKIN, Michigan PAT FALLON, Texas
VERONICA ESCOBAR, Texas
JOSEPH D. MORELLE, New York
Bess Dopkeen, Professional Staff Member
Chris Vieson, Professional Staff Member
Caroline Kehrli, Clerk
------
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND REFORM
SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY
STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts, Chairman
PETER WELCH, Vermont GLENN GROTHMAN, Wisconsin, Ranking
HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr., Member
Georgia PAUL A. GOSAR, Arizona
MARK DeSAULNIER, California VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina
KWEISI MFUME, Maryland BOB GIBBS, Ohio
DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida CLAY HIGGINS, Louisiana
JACKIE SPEIER, California
Russ Anello, Majority Staff Director
Mark Marin, Minority Staff Director
Dan Rebnord, Subcommittee Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
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Page
STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Grothman, Hon. Glenn, a Representative from Wisconsin, Ranking
Member, Subcommittee on National Security, Committee on
Oversight and Reform........................................... 7
Langevin, Hon. James R., a Representative from Rhode Island,
Chairman, Subcommitteeon Cyber, Innovative Technologies, and
Information Systems, Committee on Armed Services............... 1
Lynch, Hon. Stephen F., a Representative from Massachusetts,
Chairman, Subcommittee on National Security, Committee on
Oversight and Reform........................................... 5
Stefanik, Hon. Elise M., a Representative from New York, Ranking
Member, Subcommittee on Cyber, Innovative Technologies, and
Information Systems, Committee on Armed Services............... 4
WITNESSES
Clyburn, Hon. Mignon, Commissioner, National Security Commission
on Artificial Intelligence..................................... 13
Louie, Hon. Gilman, Commissioner, National Security Commission on
Artificial Intelligence........................................ 14
Schmidt, Dr. Eric, Chairman, National Security Commission on
Artificial Intelligence........................................ 8
Work, Hon. Robert, Vice Chairman, National Security Commission on
Artificial Intelligence........................................ 10
APPENDIX
Prepared Statements:
Langevin, Hon. James R....................................... 51
Schmidt, Dr. Eric, joint with Secretary Work, Ms. Clyburn,
and Mr. Louie.............................................. 54
Documents Submitted for the Record:
[There were no Documents submitted.]
Witness Responses to Questions Asked During the Hearing:
[There were no Questions submitted during the hearing.]
Questions Submitted by Members Post Hearing:
Mrs. Bice.................................................... 71
Mr. Moulton.................................................. 69
FINAL RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE NATIONAL SECURITY COMMISSION ON ARTIFICIAL
INTELLIGENCE
----------
House of Representatives, Committee on Armed
Services, Subcommittee on Cyber, Innovative
Technologies, and Information Systems, Meeting
Jointly with the Committee on Oversight and
Reform, Subcommittee on National Security,
Washington, DC, Friday, March 12, 2021.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 11:03 a.m., in
room 2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. James Langevin
(chairman of the Subcommittee on Cyber, Innovative
Technologies, and Information Systems) presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES R. LANGEVIN, A REPRESENTATIVE
FROM RHODE ISLAND, CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON CYBER, INNOVATIVE
TECHNOLOGIES, AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS, COMMITTEE ON ARMED
SERVICES
Mr. Langevin. Good morning, everyone. I call this joint
subcommittee hearing together with the Subcommittee on Cyber,
Innovation Technologies, and Information Systems, along with
the Subcommittee on Oversight and Government Reform--National
Security Subcommittee.
Good morning, everyone. Before I begin my opening
statement, I'm just going to give a brief technical readout for
those members that are participating remotely. I think most
members are participating remotely this morning.
But, again, I want to welcome members who are joining us at
today's joint hearing remotely. Members who are joining
remotely must be visible on screen for the purposes of
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voting.
Those members must continue to use the software platform's
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experiencing connectivity issues or other technical problems
that render them unable to participate on camera.
If a member experiences technical difficulties, they should
contact the committee staff for assistance. Video of members'
participation will be broadcast in the room and via the
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Members participating remotely must be--must seek
recognition verbally, and they are asked to mute their
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Members who are participating remotely are reminded to keep
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they attend the proceeding. Members may leave and rejoin the
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If members depart for a short while for reasons other than
joining a different proceeding, they should leave the video
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or depart for a--to join a different proceeding, they should
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Members may use the software platform's chat feature to
communicate with staff regarding technical or logistical
support issues only.
Finally, I've designated a committee staff member to, if
necessary, mute unrecognized members' microphones to cancel any
inadvertent background noise that may disrupt the proceeding.
So with that technical message out of the way, I'm now
going to proceed with my opening statement and then turn to
Ranking Member Stefanik.
Well, I want to welcome everyone to our joint hearing with
the House Committee on Oversight and Reform Subcommittee on
National Security, which will review the final recommendations
of the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence.
We welcome the subcommittee chairman, Stephen Lynch, my
good friend from Massachusetts, and Ranking Member Glenn
Grothman, and we are also pleased to host our House Armed
Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith and Ranking Member Mike
Rogers. Looks like we have a full house today. So I'm looking
forward to this very meaningful and exciting hearing.
So I'm pleased to welcome, of course, most especially, four
commissioners for the National Security Commission on
Artificial Intelligence, a commission that was created by the
House Armed Services Committee in the National Defense
Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019 to help us advance the
development of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and
associated technologies to prepare the defense enterprise for
the national security challenges of the future.
We asked this commission to produce a bipartisan whole-of-
government effort focused on solving national security issues.
We appreciate the leadership and hard work of our witnesses and
we owe each of them an immense debt of gratitude.
Today, we welcome Dr. Eric Schmidt, chairman of the
Commission; also, the Honorable Robert Work, vice chairman; the
Honorable Mignon Clyburn, commissioner on the workforce and
ethics lines of effort; and Dr. Gilman Louie, commissioner on
the lines of effort focused on protecting and building on AI
advantages, marshaling global cooperation, and threat analysis
and response actions.
While many of the commissioners hail from the tech sector,
the world's understanding of artificial intelligence truly
began in government defense labs, and specifically with
investments by the Department of Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency, DARPA, and the Office of Naval Research.
Now, decades later, we must redouble our focus on the power
of defense science and technology research to propel us into
the future. So I look forward to hearing the commissioners'
recommendations on investments in basic and applied research
and how to encourage faster adoption of innovative and cutting-
edge capabilities.
The next-generation challenges are upon us, and in our last
subcommittee hearing we talked about how the Department can
transform innovation into reality, specifically by orienting
ourselves, the software, and data capabilities that are often
the beating heart of the platforms we require and that promise
to dramatically improve decision-making and optimization
processes.
The battlespace of the future will be a complex web of
software, networks, and data--and data integrated across
domains and among our allies. Artificial intelligence and other
next-generation innovations will be crucial in order to harness
the power of data to give our men and women in uniform an edge
in any future conflict.
Our potential adversaries, of course, are already investing
heavily in this future as well. So this Commission has
undertaken the difficult task to articulate the potential of
artificial intelligence and the risks and benefits that lie
ahead.
They have worked through these issues and identified
recommendations related to research and software development,
opportunities for international partnerships, safeguarding
against our adversaries' advancements in this space, and
cultivating a 21st century workforce.
Above all, the Commission has crucial recommendations
related to building and deploying AI [artificial intelligence]
in an ethical manner that is respectful of human rights.
Indeed, that last category is what sets our Nation apart.
I commend the Defense Innovation Board, which was also
chaired until last year by Dr. Schmidt, to helping the
Department begin important discussions on ethics in AI.
Last year, Ranking Member Stefanik and I, along with
Chairman Smith and Ranking Member Thornberry, championed a
package of provisions based on the Commission's first quarter
recommendations that yielded 13 provisions in the National
Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021, with the
majority deriving from the Commission's call to strengthen the
AI workforce.
That STEM [science, technology, engineering, and
mathematics] talent is required today as much as ever to solve
our most pressing national security challenges. Indeed, great
power competition is also a race for talent. We must move past
old models of training and learning, and establish a system to
dynamically upskill our workforce as the technology evolves.
Ranking Member Stefanik and I were pleased to invite
Commission representatives for a review of the interim
recommendations last fall and we look forward to hearing about
your recently released final recommendations to Congress.
Incredibly, there are over 100 in total and over 50 related
to the purview of the Armed Services Committee.
So we commend you for all your work that you put into this
effort these past 2 years. We are grateful for that work and
that due diligence, and we look forward to receiving your
testimony today.
So with that, I'll now turn to Ranking Member Stefanik for
her remarks.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Langevin can be found in the
Appendix on page 51.]
STATEMENT OF HON. ELISE STEFANIK, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM NEW
YORK, RANKING MEMBER, SUBCOMMITTEE ON CYBER, INNOVATIVE
TECHNOLOGIES, AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS, COMMITTEE ON ARMED
SERVICES
Ms. Stefanik. Thank you, Chairman Langevin.
The National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence
is a critical step forward that I'm proud to have championed in
the House with my colleagues on a bipartisan basis, and today's
hearing is a culmination of years of hard work of our
Commission
Chairman Schmidt, Vice Chairman Work, Commissioner Clyburn,
and Commissioner Louie, thank you for serving on the Commission
and for testifying today. Your efforts will serve as a
blueprint for how our country will respond to, develop, and
lead the world in artificial intelligence capabilities.
As we know, AI not only brings immense technological
opportunities and innovation, but AI will also bring
significant risks as our adversaries will deploy AI to
challenge American interests and securities on our shores and
abroad.
And importantly, as you laid out in your final
recommendations, AI will affect every facet of life going
forward, from civil society to our economy and, of course,
national security.
For the Department of Defense [DOD] specifically, this
final report is stark in its assessment. China will surpass the
United States in AI leadership and win the innovation race if
we fail to invest in emerging technologies and if we fail to
take a whole-of-government approach to AI.
The impact on our national security is profound and
disturbing, and the report concluded that China will achieve
superiority over the U.S. within the next decade if we don't
solve our organizational and investment challenges by 2025,
just 4 years from now.
We face hard choices, given our limited resources to
maintain that technological advantage over China. Future
conflicts will take place on an AI battlefield and we must
consider the future of systems that are not AI enabled.
Simply put, DOD must be willing to take on risk and
Congress should support those efforts. Further, the U.S. cannot
win this competition if we don't have the right workforce. The
Commission highlighted our talent deficit and concluded this
problem is the greatest impediment to being AI-ready by 2025.
Chairman Langevin and I are committed to solving this
talent deficit, and last year we introduced legislation to
retain technical talent here in the U.S. I also look forward to
hearing more about the Digital Service Academy recommendation
and other ways we can develop the necessary workforce within
the DOD.
Alternatively, our private sector is driving many of the
advancements in AI and we should encourage increased
collaboration between the Department and private sector
partners.
This subcommittee understands the issues many companies
have interacting with DOD, primarily the onerous acquisition
process. This report underscores the importance of reducing red
tape so the Department doesn't hinder cooperation with the
private sector.
Again, I'm very proud of the work accomplished by this
Commission and the work that we did to include many of the
recommendations in last year's NDAA [National Defense
Authorization Act].
But more work must be done. Our warfighters must have most
advanced technological capabilities to deter and defeat our
adversaries in an AI environment.
To improve the lethality capabilities of our forces, we
must continue supporting the Joint Artificial Intelligence
Center and enable the services and combatant commands to
develop, tailor, and deploy AI systems to the battlespace.
I look forward to the presentation today and the
discussion, and I yield back.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Ranking Member Stefanik.
I now recognize Chairman Lynch for his remarks.
STATEMENT OF HON. STEPHEN LYNCH, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM
MASSACHUSETTS, CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY,
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND REFORM
Mr. Lynch. Good morning, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much.
Before I begin, I do want to thank you, Mr. Chairman, for
your continued leadership in the areas of cyberspace
operations, artificial intelligence, and other developing
technologies, all with critical implications for our national
security.
I'm pleased to join Chairman Smith, Ranking Member
Stefanik, and Ranking Member Grothman as our subcommittee
conducts today's important work to examine the final report
released earlier this month by the National Security Commission
on Artificial Intelligence.
AI carries the remarkable potential to enhance and even
transform our national security. We're already beginning to
integrate AI algorithms, applications, and systems to
facilitate intelligence collection and analysis, including to
detect and prevent future terrorist attacks.
We're also deploying AI to support battlefield medical
evacuations, logistical missions, and military operations in
Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan, and other conflict zones.
On the Financial Services Committee, where I serve as
chairman of the Task Force on Financial Technology, we're
seeing the use of AI and machine-learning technology to enhance
international investigations to combat terrorism, financing,
and money laundering.
However, the evolution of artificial intelligence has also
heightened the prospect that America's adversaries will win the
race to develop and deploy AI, and to do so for malign
purposes.
To the great detriment of our national security, as
reported by the National Security Commission on Artificial
Intelligence, and this is a quote, ``AI is expanding the window
of vulnerability that the United States has already entered.
For the first time since World War II, America's technological
predominance, the backbone of its economic and military power,
is under threat,'' closed quote.
Clearly, cybersecurity has become synonymous with national
security, and our fundamental duty to protect our democracy
requires that we become, quote, ``AI-ready,'' with resources,
personnel, and strategies necessary to meet these urgent
challenges.
According to the Commission, however, we are a long way
from that goal. Absent shifting trends, quote, ``China
possesses the might, the talent, and ambition to surpass the
United States as the world's leader in AI in the next decade.''
In his 2020 book, ``The Kill Chain: Defending America in
the Future of High-Tech Warfare,'' Christian Brose, who is a
former staff director of the Senate Armed Services Committee
under Chairman John McCain, articulates that, quote, ``A core
pillar of the Chinese Communist Party's plan in harnessing
emerging technology is to leapfrog the United States and become
the world's preeminent power.''
In fact, the 2017 development plan on artificial
intelligence issued by China's State Council envisioned that
China will lead the international AI sector as soon as 2030.
It's also worth noting that in the race to develop and
deploy AI, our adversaries, such as the Russian Federation and
the People's Republic of China, do not struggle with the moral
restrictions faced by democratic governments on the use of AI-
enabled autonomous weapons, nor are they hindered by moral
considerations regarding the impact of AI on civil liberties.
However, thanks to the expertise and the dedication of the
NSCAI [National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence]
commissioners and their staff, this final report that they have
released earlier this month sets forth a comprehensive
blueprint to help the new administration and Congress allocate
appropriate Federal resources toward the advancement and
integration of AI technologies, technical infrastructure, and a
digitally proficient workforce.
We must also work together to ensure that these efforts
maximize the opportunity for robust oversight, transparency and
accountability that reflect our compelling national interest in
safeguarding the civil liberties of all Americans.
To that end, I'm proud to be an original co-sponsor of
Representative Lori Trahan's upcoming legislation to establish
a Digital Service Academy. The creation of a fully accredited
university to train future public servants in artificial
intelligence and other digital fields is a principal
recommendation included in the Commission's final report.
I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman. I look forward to
today's hearing and discussing these issues with our
distinguished panelists.
And I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Chairman Lynch. And again, I'm
grateful that you and I could team up to bring our two
subcommittees together on this very important topic, and I
thank you for your leadership.
With that, we'll now turn to Ranking Member Grothman for
his remarks.
STATEMENT OF HON. GLENN GROTHMAN, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM
WISCONSIN, RANKING MEMBER, SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY,
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND REFORM
Mr. Grothman. All very pleasant today. Great to start off
the day by hearing a nice Boston accent.
I first want to thank Chairman Langevin and Ranking Member
Stefanik for inviting us to join in this important meeting. I
thank Chairman Lynch as well for having us.
Advancing American technology safely and effectively should
be a bipartisan policy priority. I also want to thank our
witnesses here today, and I particularly thank you for not
having us see you on a Zoom. To see you live and in person is a
real treat for us Congressmen.
You authored an impressive and thorough report on the
future of artificial intelligence, or AI, and gave Congress and
the executive a roadmap on how to proceed. Government use of
artificial intelligence poses significant and potentially
positive outcomes, but also significant challenges,
particularly surrounding ethical use and data security.
I think it's the duty of Congress to examine both the
positives and negatives of AI prior to authorizing what is
likely to be billions of dollars for decades.
Your report highlights much of this but I want to focus on
two main topics: improving the government and ensuring privacy.
The purpose of civilian government use of AI should be to
decrease the footprint and size while increasing the efficiency
and effectiveness of the Federal Government. It would defeat
the purpose of massive investment in an automation technology
to simply expand the size and scope of agencies instead of
streamlining the workforce.
An analysis by Deloitte suggests that smart use of AI can
save billions of man-hours and billions of dollars. The level
of--this level of savings can only be experienced if the
government makes cuts where AI allows us. We can see these
benefits already taking place all over the government, like at
the Social Security Administration and the Patent and Trademark
Office.
As the technology grows and advances, so must our
workforce. The government growth--let me see here. The
government must get better at recruiting and retaining top
talent. To achieve the benefits of AI, we must be able to
assure our fellow Americans that the data is safe and the
technology is being used ethically.
AI can be prone to false positives and negatives and
overreliance on suspected patterns. It also relies on massive
amounts of data in order to continue to learn and evolve. We
must protect this data through data stewardship requirements,
data transparency and disclosure rules, data governance rules,
and data collection rules.
These protections must be put in place. We can see the
dangers of runaway AI use in China. Using AI to support
genocide in Xinjiang and suppress democracy in Hong Kong
provides insight into how our adversaries view and use this
technology--I'll say rather than suppress democracy, I guess I
should say suppress freedom--as a way to suppress dissent and
to become a global and economic military power.
It is vital that the U.S. counter these actions. I look
forward to hearing from our witnesses today about how we can
balance the new global arms race with government efficiency and
privacy.
Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Ranking Member Grothman, for your
remarks. We will now hear from our witnesses, then move into
the question and answer session.
With that--and I just want to make sure that Chairman Smith
or Ranking Member Rogers didn't have any opening comments.
Mr. Smith. I'm good. Thanks, Jim.
Mr. Langevin. Okay, very good. And I don't know if the
ranking member is on, if he had any comments.
Hearing none, okay. Then we will--we will now turn to our
witnesses, as I said, and then move to the question and answer
period.
I'd like to now recognize Dr. Eric Schmidt, Chairman of the
Commission. Dr. Schmidt is the co-founder of Schmidt Futures,
was the technical adviser to the board of Alphabet, and before
that, the CEO [chief executive officer] of Google. He has a
distinguished record of contributions to the national security
technology community, including chairing the Defense Innovation
Board.
Dr. Schmidt, as a commissioner on the Cyberspace Solarium
Commission, I just want to say a big thank you for your
commitment to ensuring that the two Commissions work together,
and let me say how pleased I am to see you champion some of the
Solarium's recommendations as well.
So we are deeply in your debt. I'm grateful for your
contributions in these areas, and I now recognize you to
summarize your testimony for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF DR. ERIC SCHMIDT, CHAIRMAN, NATIONAL SECURITY
COMMISSION ON ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Dr. Schmidt. Well, thank you, Chairman Langevin, Ranking
Member Stefanik, Chairman Lynch, Ranking Member Grothman, and
the members of all the committees.
I am very pleased on behalf of all the commissioners to
present 751 pages, which you asked us to produce more than 2
years ago, and I could not be prouder of this report and its--
both the quality and the heft are worth noting.
More than 2 years ago, this committee, the House Armed
Services Committee, foresaw the huge impact of AI on our
society and our national security, and also foresaw the future
and potential, perhaps likely, threats from our opponents.
And that process, along the way we worked with you in the
NDAA a year ago to get some important changes in the
legislation that will really help our Nation.
Just overall, I cannot say enough about the way we've
worked together, the support that you all have given us, and an
opportunity that you've given us to serve the Nation.
What I thought I'd do right now is just give a quick
summary of where the report is, and my fellow commissioners can
take you into some of the very interesting detail.
We reached a number of overarching judgments. The first is
that the government is not organized nor resourced to win the
technology competition against a committed competitor, and it's
not prepared to defend against AI-enabled threats and we
strongly believe that our Nation needs to be AI-ready by 2025
to defend and compete in the coming era of AI-accelerated
competition and conflict.
So we put the report into two parts. The first part is
``Part I: Defending America in the AI Era,'' and it's
fundamentally how the U.S. government can use AI technologies
to protect the American people and our interests. It focuses on
the implications of applications of AI for defense and
security.
The second part is ``Winning the Technology Competition.''
It's obvious, by the way, we should win that. Recommends
government actions to promote AI innovation, promote national
competitiveness, and protect critical U.S. advantages in the
larger strategic competition with China.
In the idea of simplifying what we need to get done, we
came up with four priorities with a great many details, as
you'll hear about.
The first one is leadership. The government isn't quite
ready for this fight. It's not organized in the right way. We
need organizational structures that accelerate the government's
integration of AI and the promotion of AI across the country.
There needs to be something at the White House. We're
proposing a Technology Competitiveness Council reporting in to
the Vice President that would precisely monitor and drive this
transformation that we need.
And by the way, it's not just the government. It's also in
private sector.
Talent. As you've identified--a number of you have in your
opening comments--there's a huge talent deficit in the
government. We need to build new digital talent pipelines and
expand existing programs.
We need to cultivate AI talent nationwide and ensure the
best technologists come to the U.S. and stay in the U.S. and
don't go to our competitors. Seems sort of obvious but
incredibly important to emphasize.
In hardware, the AI systems are critically dependent upon
powerful hardware and we, as a country, are too dependent on
semiconductor manufacturing in East Asia and Taiwan in
particular.
Most cutting-edge plants are produced in a specific plant
that's 110 miles from China. That's got to be an issue. We must
revitalize U.S. cutting-edge semiconductor fabs and implement a
national microelectronics strategy.
We state very clearly in our report that the objectives is
to stay two generations ahead of the Chinese effort. It could
not be clearer, in our view.
And the fourth, of course, is innovation. AI research is
very expensive. We need the government to help set the
conditions for broad-based innovation across the country.
We need, for example, a national AI research infrastructure
so more than the top five companies have the resources to
innovate, and in particular, startups and universities need
this facility.
And we also need to add, we think over 5, 6, 7 years, up to
$40 billion in annual funding in the next 5 years to cover AI
R&D [research and development] for defense and nondefense
purposes.
And as you highlighted, Mr. Chairman, in your comments,
there are other things that are crossing edge. The first is
partnerships. We need to build coalitions with like-minded
nations, the technology democracies--the techno democracies, in
my own verbiage--to advance the development and use of AI in
emerging technologies that support our values, which is
critical. We spent a lot of time on our report talking about
values.
And the second one, consistent with the values, is
responsible use. In the face of digital authoritarianism, we
need, we, the U.S., need to present a democratic model of
responsible use of AI for national security.
You can imagine the opponents and how they might use or
misuse these things. The trust of our Nation, the trust of our
citizens, will hinge on justified assurance that the
government's use of AI will respect privacy, civil liberties,
and civil rights. We have a set of recommendations along those
lines.
I really thank you all for giving us this opportunity. It
has been a true privilege for me to be part of this and to help
lead it.
Thank you very much.
[The joint prepared statement of Dr. Schmidt, Secretary
Work, Ms. Clyburn, and Mr. Louie can be found in the Appendix
on page 54.]
Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Chairman Schmidt.
With that, next we will hear from the Honorable Robert
Work, Vice Chair of the Commission. Secretary Work is a former
Deputy Secretary of Defense and Under Secretary of the Navy.
Secretary Work's commitment to innovative strategic
thinking is well known, and I welcome him back before us today.
Dr. Work, you are now recognized to summarize your
testimony for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF HON. ROBERT WORK, VICE CHAIRMAN, NATIONAL SECURITY
COMMISSION ON ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Secretary Work. Thank you, Chairman Langevin, Ranking
Member Stefanik, Chairman Lynch, Ranking Member Grothman, and
members of the committee. Thank you for having us today. It's a
great opportunity to testify before you.
I'd like to follow Eric's broad overview with a focus on
the parts of our report that deal with national defense. The
Commission fears that our Armed Forces will lose their
competitive military technical advantage within the next decade
if they do not accelerate the adoption of AI across all their
military missions.
Now, the intelligence record, we think, is quite clear. I
also would just like to note that we have a classified annex
that I would commend to all of the members. It is a summation
of the intelligence record of what we think or know what our
competitors are doing with AI.
We're not going to be able to defend against AI-enabled
threats without ubiquitous AI capabilities of our own, and new
warfighting concepts and paradigms. Without question, an AI-
enabled force is going to be more effective. AI-enabled systems
can make targeting more discriminant and precise, thereby
reducing civilian casualties and damage to civilian
infrastructure and other protected entities.
It will improve the tempo, speed, and scale of operations
and it will enhance the way the battlefield can be monitored.
It will help the way that commanders understand what is
happening in the battlespace.
It will also augment the abilities of service members
including the way they perceive, understand, decide, adapt, and
act in the course of all their missions.
As Eric has said, if we are going to win this competition,
we think we need to be what we call AI-ready by 2025, which by
that we mean we will have the foundation in place for the
widespread integration of AI across the force.
There are four main ingredients to achieve this vision.
First is top down leadership and strategic direction. On a
transformation of the scale that we believe is necessary, you
have to have strong top-down leadership.
They set the priorities. They overcome the barriers to
change. We think the JAIC's [Joint Artificial Intelligence
Center's] new reporting structure established in the NDAA is a
strong first step. Congress should also direct the Department,
in our view, to form a steering committee on emerging
technology that includes representation from the intelligence
community, and this steering committee would drive action on AI
and emerging technologies.
Priorities should be implemented through a technology annex
in the National Defense and Intelligence Strategies. The
committee would align priorities, strategy, and resources
across OSD [Office of the Secretary of Defense], the Joint
Staff, and the intelligence community.
Effective integration of the AI is absolutely going to
require a close partnership between the technologists and the
warfighters. To ensure technical expertise informs capability
and requirements decisions at the highest level, we recommend
that the U.S.--the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and
Engineering be made the co-chair and the Chief Science Advisor
for the Joint Requirements Oversight Council, or JROC.
We also believe the Department should set specific AI
readiness performance goals by the end of fiscal year 2021, and
this will drive the outcomes of being AI-ready by 2025.
Second, the Department, we think, must ensure it has in
place the resources, processes, and organizations to enable AI
innovation. The Department needs to establish a common digital
ecosystem.
It's called the Joint Common Foundation in the Department
of Defense. That's good for a start. That's the technical
foundation for all AI development fielding. So it's going to
include access to a secure cloud, AI software, trained models,
data, and algorithms, as well as high-performance computing
power and a development environment that allows the entire AI
stack to be put together in a way that is secure and will do
what we expect it to do on the battlefield.
We think JAIC should be designated as the Department's AI
accelerant. The JAIC, in our view, should focus on
applications, not on hard research. Essentially, the JAIC's
role is to try to get as many applications into the field as
possible, and they provide the resources through the digital
ecosystem or the Joint Common Foundation.
They also can provide subject matter expertise to support
AI efforts across the Department without becoming a central
clearinghouse. The Department has to expand the use of
specialized acquisition pathways and contracting authorities to
source and deliver the best AI.
Ranking Member Stefanik mentioned this. Software and
algorithms are just a different kettle of fish than ships,
airplanes, missiles, et cetera, and we have to come up with
ways that are specific to get those algorithms and models
developed and into the hands of our warfighters.
We have to come together also to reform the planning,
programming, budgeting, and execution process. Congress has
provided us--excuse me, provided the Department of Defense with
an expanded toolkit of acquisition and contracting approaches,
and the Department's effort to adopt AI will be impeded by
processes that are unsuited to digital technologies and the
pace of development of AI right now.
The Department should also increase its overall S&T
[science and technology] spending and increase AI R&D to $8
billion annually by 2025.
We think that's totally appropriate within the size of the
DOD R&D budget, which is the largest in its history.
Third, we think AI adoption has to be accelerated. We think
one of the ways to get these algorithms and models across the
valley of death and into the hands of the warfighter would be
if Congress could create a dedicated AI fund specifically
designed to speed operational prototyping and transition,
overseen by the Under Secretary of Defense for R&E.
We think the Department should prioritize adoption of
commercial AI solutions, especially to its core business
processes and administrative processes, as well as logistics
and sustainment systems.
Technologists should be integrated at every level in the
Department, in the administrative side as well as the
operational side. This would mean, for example, standing up AI
development teams at the COCOMs [combatant commands].
And fourth and finally, as Eric said, we need the adoption
of these technologies among our allies and partners, and
promote AI interoperability.
Thank you again for the opportunity to testify here today
and I look forward to your questions.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Secretary Work. Greatly appreciate
your contributions and efforts on this extraordinary report and
effort. Thank you.
We'll now receive testimony from the Honorable Mignon
Clyburn. Commissioner Clyburn spent 9 years on the Federal
Communications Commission where she worked to close the digital
divide.
She has a distinguished career fighting for diversity in
the communications sector, and I welcome her back to share more
of her thoughts on workforce and ethics from the Commission.
Commissioner Clyburn, you are now recognized to summarize
your testimony for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF HON. MIGNON CLYBURN, COMMISSIONER, NATIONAL
SECURITY COMMISSION ON ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Ms. Clyburn. Thank you very much.
Chairman Langevin, Ranking Member Stefanik--sorry,
Stefanik. Stefanik. We're friends.
[Laughter.]
Ms. Clyburn. Chairman Lynch, Ranking Member Grothman--I'm
having a tongue-tied morning--and members of the committee,
thank you for the opportunity to appear before you to highlight
the Commission's workforce recommendations.
But first, I would like to thank the members of the
committee, particularly Chairman Langevin and Ranking Member
Stefanik, for your leadership and for advancing many of the
Commission's recommendations in this area.
Each time my fellow commissioners discussed the workforce,
we arrived at the same conclusions. The military needs to have
expertise both in and out of uniform or it will be unable to
build the systems to perform the task described in our report,
and the DOD is unlikely to develop expertise quickly enough on
its own.
As a result, if the Department of Defense is going to
become AI-ready, especially by 2025, as we have recommended,
congressional action will be needed.
Allow me to briefly describe four high priority
recommendations in the report.
First, and most critical for the AI workforce, is the need
for military and civilian career fields in software
development, data science, and artificial intelligence. The
inability of military digital subject matter experts to spend
their careers working in digital fields is, arguably, the
single most important issue impeding modernization.
Without this career path, DOD will continue to struggle to
recruit new talent, identify talent, and retain the talent it
already has. I should note that many of the military and
civilian experts we spoke with when the Commission started have
since left government service because they were unable to
continue working on AI.
We must stop bleeding talent. This is a well-known problem
with a relatively straightforward solution. Unfortunately, we
have not seen enough progress and it is time for us to take
concrete steps to address the hemorrhaging when it comes to
talent.
Our second priority is training junior leaders. We must
fundamentally change how junior leaders use and interact with
AI and other information-processing agents. Junior leaders must
not only understand how to team with machines, but learn when
to trust machine outputs.
We recommend the military services integrate AI topics into
pre-commissioning and entry level training for junior officers
and training for both junior and senior noncommissioned
officers.
Our third priority is to incentivize emerging technology
literacy among senior officers. We often speak of the need for
a cultural change in DOD. But the most effective way to change
culture is to change incentives.
Using the Goldwater-Nichols Act's incentivization of joint
competency as a model, Congress should require DOD to create an
emerging technology certification process in critical billets.
Service members should earn their certification by serving
in noncritical emerging technology billets, fellowships with
industry and academia, graduating certified courses, and
earning commercial certifications.
Finally, we recommend a United States Digital Service
Academy, an accredited degree-granting university. The academy
would help meet the government's needs for expertise in
artificial intelligence, software engineering, electrical
engineering, computational biology, and several other areas.
Students would attend the school tuition free and receive a
highly technical education. Graduates would then enter the
government as civil servants with a 5-year service obligation.
Our staff will be available to work with you on further
details of each recommendation. But for your convenience and
consideration, we have produced a draft--we have produced draft
legislative language for your review.
Thank you again for the opportunity to appear before you
and I look forward to any questions you may have.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you very much, Commission Clyburn. We
appreciate your testimony today and what you had to say.
And, lastly, we'll receive testimony from Mr. Gilman Louie.
Mr. Louie is a co-founder and partner of Alsop Louie Partners,
an early-stage technology venture capital firm, and he was the
very first CEO of In-Q-Tel, the venture capital firm
established with the backing of the Central Intelligence
Agency.
I welcome him now to share his insights from the Commission
on technological advantages, global cooperation, and threat
analysis.
Commissioner Louie, you are now recognized to summarize
your testimony for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF HON. GILMAN LOUIE, COMMISSIONER, NATIONAL SECURITY
COMMISSION ON ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Mr. Louie. Thank you very much.
Chairman Langevin, Ranking Member Stefanik, Chairman Lynch,
Ranking Member Grothman, and members of the committee, thank
you for the opportunity to testify today.
Our report took a broad view of national security to
compass economic competitiveness, as Eric has noted, as well as
defense, as Bob has discussed, and wanted to focus on a series
of cross-cutting national security problems related to AI that
needs urgent attention.
What these have in common is that our adversaries are
aiming to take advantage of the free and open nature of our
society.
First, our society's digital dependency leaves us
vulnerable to emerging AI-enabled threats. For example,
adversaries are using AI to enhance disinformation campaigns
and cyber attacks.
They're also harvesting data on Americans to build profiles
of their beliefs, behavior, and biological makeup to be used
for tailored attempts to manipulate or coerce individuals.
This is a gathering storm of foreign influence and
interference, and requires organizational and policy reforms to
bolster our resilience.
You should stand up a task force and 24/7 operation center
to confront digital disinformation. The government needs to
better secure its own databases and prioritize data security
and foreign investment screening, supply chain risk management,
and national data protection legislation.
We need AI-enabled cyber defenses to protect against AI-
enabled cyber attacks. And as the pandemic has made clear,
biosecurity must become a top tier priority in national
security policy.
Second, competitors are making every effort to steal our
technology, research, and intellectual property. As the margin
of U.S. technological advantages narrows and foreign efforts to
acquire American know-how increases, we need to examine how to
best protect our ideas, universities, labs, and companies
without unduly hindering innovation.
We need to modernize export controls and foreign
investments screening to better protect dual-use technologies
like AI. We need to protect U.S. research institutions as
national assets. They need tools and resources to assess risks
and share information as well as cybersecurity support, and we
need to elevate intellectual property [IP] policy reforms as a
national security priority in light of China's effort to
leverage and exploit IP policies to its own advantage.
Finally, to protect our country in all these areas, we need
to better--have better intelligence. The report makes
significant judgments that intelligence will benefit from AI
more than any other national security mission. The intelligence
community should integrate AI across all aspects of its work,
from collection to analysis.
We need to empower science and technology leaders in the IC
[intelligence community]. We need to leverage open source
information, and we need new approaches to intelligence fusion
and human-machine teaming to develop better insights and
augment human judgment.
Let me close by saying that just as AI is posed [to] impact
all sectors of society, it also poses to impact all dimensions
of national security.
I urge Congress to review the full range of national
security problems addressed in this report and adopt our
recommendations to address them.
Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Commissioner Louie. I deeply
appreciate you lending your expertise and efforts to this
Commission, and thank you for your testimony today.
We'll now turn to member questions, and we'll recognize
members for 5 minutes. I'll begin by recognizing myself for 5
minutes.
Dr. Schmidt and Mr. Louie, are there better ways that DOD
could leverage industry and academia to field the AI systems
more quickly than going through the normal acquisition
pipeline?
Will the software acquisition pathway, by way of example,
provided in the FY [fiscal year] 2020 NDAA and the Budget
Activity 8 software budgeting pilots help DOD's efforts?
Dr. Schmidt. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The pathway that you all provided is helpful but is not
sufficient, and the cultural aspect of training people to treat
software differently has taken--has been harder and taken
longer than I thought.
I do know many, many software companies who want to work
with the government and, in particular, the DOD, and they
cannot find a corresponding customer or user or buyer or
someone who can work with them.
My own view is that the DOD should set up some kind of
technology insertion program where they, literally, go and try
to get this stuff in because it's so strategic and so important
to the mission of the DOD.
Gilman.
Mr. Louie. Thank you, Dr. Schmidt.
Software and AI are joined at the hip, and until the
Department is able to acquire software as software, not as
hardware, not in the form of block upgrades, but as consumed as
a field that fuels our system.
We have a saying that we did back who worked--many of us
who worked on SWAP [Software Acquisition and Practices] report.
We said software is something that never ends. It's a continual
process. But all of our acquisitions are designed for building
big systems in these kind of monolithic upgrades.
Our adversaries are not doing that. For us to be
competitive and for us to have the best software as it's
happening, we need to reform on how we do it.
A single color of money is a start, but it's only a start.
The culture needs to change. We need professionals who know how
to acquire software, and understands the basic underpinnings of
AI.
Mr. Langevin. Very good. Thank you, Dr. Louie.
If I could continue with you, Dr. Louie--Commissioner
Louie. We're all aware that China views talent as central to
its technological advancement. The Commission addressed many
recommendations towards the U.S.'s need to attract and retain
the best foreign talent to study, live, and work in the United
States. Can you speak to why this is so important to our
national security and how others will capitalize on our
policies if we do not find a way to keep the best talent here?
Mr. Louie. Sure.
First of all, China realizes it has a major disadvantage
when it comes to attracting talent. Talent comes to democracies
where good ideas flourish and individuals can chase their own
pursuits in order to improve research and development.
In doing so, we must not give away that advantage. We
attract the best and the brightest from all over the world for
the past 50 years. It's a fundamental U.S. advantage. The
Chinese realize that they cannot compete with our top 1 percent
when it comes to AI.
Their strategy is to use their talents to apply what we
discover. That discovery capability lies in our ability to work
not only in our universities and research labs from individuals
both from here domestically and from all over the world, but to
share those ideas in the open and shared platform called Open
Science.
China is not an open society. It does not believe in open
science. We do. Please don't give up that advantage.
Mr. Langevin. Yeah. Well said, Commissioner Louie.
Finally, Dr. Schmidt, of all your recommendations that
focus on the Department of Defense and its adoption of AI, what
do you believe are the Commission's most consequential
recommendations that Congress has not yet acted upon?
Dr. Schmidt. There are many--and Commissioner Work can
probably add here--there are many aspects of the
recommendations around talent that have not been adopted, in
particular, retaining specialized talent.
And the other issue has to do with the regulatory
structure. As you highlighted in your earlier comment, the
regulations are, essentially, antithetical to prioritizing AI.
They're built around large weapon systems of a hardware
kind, and the real strength of our Nation will come from the
strength of our software and AI activities.
Mr. Langevin. Commissioner Work, did you have anything to
add, Mr. Secretary?
Secretary Work. Sir, I'll just say that there's three
general areas. I don't have a single answer. So with your
forbearance, I'll give you three.
The first is under leadership and strategy. We think that
tri-chair steering committee is absolutely central to provide
the top-down leadership and push for the integration of AI
throughout the force. And having the JROC as the co-chair--
excuse me, having the Under Secretary of Defense for R&E as the
co-chair for the JROC will make sure the technology and
capabilities and requirements are absolutely synced up.
Under enabling the resources, processing, and
organizational constructs, getting that common digital
infrastructure, which means secure cloud, we hope we can get to
a secure cloud for the Department.
But having the algorithmic libraries, et cetera, and having
JAIC established as the AI accelerator is probably the most
important thing at the applications level. And then under
accelerated adoption, it's trying to get these teams out to the
field, out to the COCOMs.
Dr. Schmidt and I visited SOCOM [U.S. Special Operations
Command], for example, and what they're doing down there, where
the combatant commander himself has taken this as a personal
mission and established the talent and team to push it, has
really seen some remarkable advances in special operations
capabilities.
We need to have those type--same type of teams and
approaches in the Indo-Pacific Command and European Command. So
thinking of it in terms of leadership, enabling resources and
processes, and accelerating adoption would be the three things
that I would say are the most consequential.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Secretary Work, and thank you all
for your answers.
With that, Ranking Member Stefanik is now recognized for 5
minutes.
Ms. Stefanik. Thank you, Chairman Langevin.
An idea that each witness and each commissioner has
highlighted today, as well as the chair of the Oversight and
Government Reform Committee, is this bipartisan proposal for a
Digital Service Academy and how the issue of workforce and
talent is going to make or break whether the United States is
able to lead in AI.
So my question is for Chairman Schmidt. Can you expand upon
this recommendation to include how such an academy should be
established? And then I also want to hear what have been the
impediments to this recommendation.
Dr. Schmidt. If it's okay, I prefer that Commissioner
Clyburn answer.
Ms. Stefanik. Great.
Ms. Clyburn. Thank you, again, very much.
The need is very clear. We have a clogged pipeline, and so
the Commission was very bold in its recommendation. It
recognizes that there are a number of impediments.
Many of them are economic, and so what we attempted to do
here was to identify what could be a platform that would be
targeted when it comes to STEM education, be unapologetic about
educating to meet the needs that we have in government from a
civilian point of view, and this academy is a part of the
solution.
Some of the things that I have heard that have been maybe a
little less embracing is what does it mean in terms of the
other service academies. You know, do we need another
institution? How expensive will it be? How long will it be to
onboard?
It is not going to be inexpensive. It will take up to 7
years to graduate the first class. But what I will say is we--
that pipeline problem that I recommend--that I mentioned,
everyone knows that it's there.
We need to be big, bold, and targeted and intentional, and
this is one way we thought it was unwaveringly, you know,
obvious that we were serious about addressing the pipeline
deficit.
Ms. Stefanik. Thank you, Ms.----
Dr. Schmidt. May I--may I----
Ms. Stefanik. Oh, sure. Go ahead, Eric.
Dr. Schmidt. Yeah, let me just--let me add that a number of
universities have offered to help us get this set up if the
legislation proceeds as we've described, and it should
ultimately be very good economically because of the payback
requirement. If you graduate, you have to work for the
government for 5 years.
We strongly endorse this idea.
Ms. Stefanik. Well, I appreciate that. I think this is
going to be one of the most important ways and important
strategies that we need to work on a bipartisan basis to
embrace in order to make sure that we maintain a competitive
edge.
And my other question is on the timeline issue related to
workforce and talent.
Commissioner Clyburn, you talked about the 7-year time
periods to even graduate students from a Digital Service
Academy. But yet the report talks about this 2025 timeline in
order for the--for the United States to maintain that edge
against China.
Are there any steps we can take now to address this talent
deficit before 2025 or before that 7-year period with the
Digital Service Academy, and if yes, what are those steps?
Ms. Clyburn. Yes, ma'am. Thank you for that, and forgive me
for struggling with your name. We say a lot of long A's and
long E's so forgive me. I'm from South Carolina.
Ms. Stefanik. It's okay.
Ms. Clyburn. So one of the things that we recommend is an
agency-specific digital corps, and this would be modeled after
the Army's Medical Corps. And this would allow for specialized
personnel and policies and guidelines for promotion.
One of the issues, when I mentioned those who have left
government, is there was no way to stay on an AI track and to
get promoted and for us to benefit from that. The National
Reserve Digital Corps, again, another civilian track, you know,
modeled after the other, you know, reservist opportunities.
We can quickly get those committed and on board to offer
38--at least 38 days a year for service. They could triage.
They could help. They could assist and they could augment.
The scholarship--we have, you know, scholarship service,
you know, programs that we need to expand and we need to expand
the cyber--well, again, the cyber corps for civilian--excuse
me, scholarship service.
That would be NSF [National Science Foundation] managed.
That would allow those who qualified to work in an agency.
There are some things that we can do right now that will ensure
a pipeline while we wait for that first graduating class.
Ms. Stefanik. Great. Thank you so much, Commissioner
Clyburn. Thank you, Chairman Schmidt, and all the commissioners
for your emphasis on the workforce challenge.
Yield back.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Ranking Member Stefanik.
The chair now recognizes Chairman Lynch.
Dr. Schmidt. Chairman Work wanted to make a comment.
Mr. Langevin. Oh.
Mr. Lynch. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First of all, I want to thank the panel for all of your
work. First of all, coming here today in person, I think,
speaks to the urgency of the issue, and we appreciate that.
And also, we're thankful for this report. You know,
normally in Congress when we see a 750-page document, we assume
that it was compiled for the purpose of defending itself
against the risk of being read.
But I'm happy to say that your document is an exception.
And I want to just point out to my colleagues and staff that in
Appendix D, so not only did it make recommendations about what
might be done to address the problem, but it also includes
draft legislation in rudimentary form to really--so it's all
worked out, pretty much.
It can be refined a bit. But it's a head start on a lot of
the work that we are engaged in here at the Capitol, and I
appreciate your work.
I do want to follow up on Ms. Stefanik's inquiry regarding
several of you have talked about the dearth of talent, and the
fact that we have got to get more young people into the
pipeline.
I am a co-sponsor of Ms. Trahan's bill for the academy.
But, you know, I've had a similar problem in my own district. I
represent a big part of Boston. A lot of the jobs in my area
that are being created were really heavily reliant on a math
and science background, and in the traditional public schools
we weren't getting that.
So I actually founded a charter school that triples the
amount of math and science that the kids would have gotten had
they gone to the traditional public schools.
So--and there are a lot of schools around the country that
are doing this, both traditional public schools and charter
schools.
Is there a way that we might be able to incentivize that
type of activity? Because we have got to not just think about
people who might serve in government tomorrow, literally, but
also increasing that or animating that pursuit around issues
like cyber, artificial intelligence, you know, so many other
areas that are coming at us at a pace that is unprecedented.
The velocity of change is breathtaking in terms of what
we're grasping, you know, both in Congress, but also in our
society. Is there a way that we might incentivize that learning
at a much lower level than we're talking about for this
academy?
Ms. Clyburn. Yes, sir, I believe we can. I think we need to
just demystify what STEM is or what STEAM [science, technology,
engineering, the arts, and mathematics] is. When people hear
about that they think it's for a certain segment of the
community. They don't recognize that if a young person creates
any type of product, a designer that creates lipstick, that's
science.
And so what we need to do, I think, a better job of
messaging is saying, this is what it is. It is a part of your
everyday--you know, your everyday culture. This is science.
This is engineering.
And we need to help our teachers become better facilitators
and supportive, and we really need to recognize some of the
existing cultural barriers when it comes to especially women
and underrepresented groups.
So afterschool programs, that's important. NSF has, you
know, programs. We need an all-of-the-above approach in order
to erase some of the challenges that you see, and kudos to you
for starting the charter school with that focus.
Mr. Lynch. Mr. Chairman, we're about to consider several
immigration bills in Congress. We have already begun debate
about that. They're being put together.
Is there an opportunity for us to use the visa program and
that immigration bill as a way of getting talent? I see that
Canada does a very good job at this. There's actually a little
tension between the Chinese government and the Canadian
government because Canada has been so successful in recruiting
some really top-line talent from China and Asia.
You know, I tend to think we should be doing the same
thing, using the promise of America to attract, you know, some
of the--some of the talent that would like to get to work on
some of the issues that we have in the country.
Is there a way to do that through our upcoming immigration
debate?
Dr. Schmidt. There's no question that the United States
will be stronger if we encourage high-skills immigration. In
the last administration, mostly what would happen is that the
visas would be very difficult to get and that companies would
park employees in places like Canada, Vancouver, and so forth,
waiting for the H-1B lottery.
This is not in America's interest. So everything that we
can do to get high-skills immigration into the right places is
welcome.
The argument is relatively simple. If we don't welcome
them, they will create companies and efforts in countries that
may ultimately not consistent with our best interest.
The other obvious point is once we let them in the country
or once we educate them in the country, we need to give them
some way of staying in the country, consistent with the law and
their good behavior.
It's stupid, frankly, if I may say that, to fully educate a
brilliant quantum physicist and then send him to China where he
creates a quantum physics program that competes with our
military activities, which, indeed, is what we did.
Gilman, you may have something to add here.
Mr. Louie. Thank you, Dr. Schmidt.
We had some very specific recommendations in our report.
First, we should expand our O/M/J visa programs. We have
many talented individuals who want to stay in the United
States, but they don't do it through the classical means of
having published reports and things of that nature. For that,
that's terrific.
But AI is moving so rapidly, we need to open our aperture
on who should be eligible for that class of visa.
Second, we want entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs who come to
the United States, create jobs for Americans, and we should
develop and expand that lane for individuals, particularly in
these areas of high competitions in science and technology. We
want those entrepreneurs. We want them to create jobs here and
build great American businesses.
And finally, we made a recommendation. With the appropriate
screening in place, we believe that anybody receiving a
doctorate degree in the science and technology area or areas of
critical requirements should be granted a visa.
We want these individuals to stay, not go back and develop
competing capabilities elsewhere.
Mr. Lynch. Mr. Chairman, thank you.
Mr. Langevin. Very good. Thank you, Chairman Lynch.
Yes?
Secretary Work. I was just going to say, and this goes back
to a Ranking Member Stefanik's question, you know, we looked at
this as a--we wanted to exploit our homegrown talent. We wanted
to attract worldwide talent. And we wanted to ID [identify] and
use the talent we have on hand.
So exploiting homegrown talent, Commissioner Clyburn
continually just said, look, we have got a lot of people who
want to get into STEM. They don't have the opportunity to do it
because they can't afford to go to college.
So the national research--the National Digital Corps--
National Reserve Digital Corps was designed to do just that.
It's like the NROTC [Naval Reserve Officers' Training Corps]
program or the ROTC [Reserve Officers' Training Corps] program.
Anybody can apply. They'd get a full ride, and when they
graduate, they would owe--they would--38 days a year like a
National Guardsman or someone in the National Guard where 2
days out of every month, they would come into a unit and say,
how can AI or these advanced technologies help you accomplish
your mission better. I'm here to help you do that. And then 2
weeks out of the year, they'd go to a military exercise and
say, geez, if you just implied machine learning in this
particular application, you're going to be 15 times more
effective.
And so that was really trying to attract homegrown talent.
The National Digital Academy is designed to get people into the
government for a long period of time so we can exploit them.
Attracting the worldwide talent, Commissioner Louie and
Commissioner Clyburn have already talked about this. But the
third thing I wanted to say, which we haven't talked, is,
there's a lot of talent in the Department of Defense right now.
These young men and women, many of them are great coders. All
they want to do is have an opportunity to get on a software
development team and they will rock the world.
So many of the suggestions we have is how do you identify
those people? Give them a classifier that we can follow and
assign, and that's how we're confident we could get to 2025
before we're getting 700 graduates from the Digital Academy. So
we took it from a holistic view, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you for that.
Mr. Lynch. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Chairman Lynch.
Mr. Grothman--Ranking Member Grothman is now recognized 5
minutes.
Mr. Grothman. Sure, a few questions.
There's nothing--I didn't anticipate the debate here would
wind up over immigration. But it's an interesting topic. Do you
think we should have some sort of math and science tests as we
decide who's going to be able to immigrate in this country?
Mr. Langevin. I don't think your microphone is on.
Mr. Louie. I think math and science is critical. I think,
particularly in our recommendations for the doctorate lane,
clearly, S&T should be one of the testing variables that we
should be looking at.
That's the talent that we need in this country and we
should be very explicit to the rest of the world. If you want
to come to the United States and use your talents and use it
well here, we welcome you.
Mr. Grothman. Absolutely. When I talk to immigrants in my
area, they sometimes complain that the smartest people are
going to Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and we're getting the
ones who aren't. So if the chairman wants to put a math and
science requirement in immigration, it's something to look at.
Now, we talk about ways and the government getting more
involved in AI. Are there areas of the government that you
think will be able to be cut as we improve in artificial
intelligence, since presumably, it will, you know, improve a
variety of things? I feel sorry; all of a sudden now Chairman
Schmidt had to put a mask on. It was great seeing you without
the mask.
Dr. Schmidt. I'm trying to follow the rules.
Bob, do you want to answer the government question?
Secretary Work. Well, I--you've sent shivers down my spine
because now I'm going back to my time as the Deputy Secretary,
and every time a question like this came up, I would always
hate to answer it.
But, generally, we know that AI is going to have a
tremendous impact on all the back office processes in the
Department of Defense and the Federal Government, and it will
become more efficient and you will require fewer people to do
the work.
So I would expect this to have some reduction in the
overall Federal workforce as AI is completely implemented
across the government and in the Department of Defense.
Mr. Grothman. Do you think it would be a good idea to have
targets right now? Because you know what happens. Nobody ever
wants to cut the government.
And I agree with you. Hypothetically, one of the benefits
of artificial intelligence is that it should make things more
streamlined and reduce the number of positions.
But people around here don't like to do that and that's
what I'm trying to ask you right now so we know in advance when
we're putting together the budget in 2028 where we can expect
to have reductions in personnel.
Dr. Schmidt. I think it's reasonable to expect that some of
the overhead functions will be smaller and that the specialized
functions will be larger, and the easiest way to achieve that
would be not to do what you're describing, but instead, put
some guidance on the kind of people that are being hired now
because the hiring pipeline takes a while.
So the government loses, you know, 10 percent of the
employees a year and it's hiring 10 percent new, some number
like that. You all would know the exact number. You could
establish a threshold that among the new hires that occur every
year, a certain percentage of them have to meet a science and
technology type threshold, a specialized threshold, and that
would achieve your objective without having to go through the
fighting over budgets argument.
We're really focused on the people, not the money, because
the people will drive everything else.
Mr. Louie. I also think that the other part of the equation
here is increasing the productivity of our people. Look, our
adversaries are not holding back. You know, China has already
set out its goals: to compete with the U.S. in AI by 2025--
underneath ``Made in China 2025''--to surpass the U.S.
capabilities by 2030, and to win in any domain anywhere in the
world in any kind of a hostile action by 2049.
The issue is not so much the savings but where do we deploy
our talent? Where do we put them in places where they are going
to be the most productive and how are we going to compete with
an adversary who's committed its entire nation to win in the
fourth industrial revolution?
We need to meet that challenge head on. We need to deploy
our personnel, educate them, and skill them to be able to fight
in this next arms race.
Mr. Grothman. What majors right now in American colleges,
to you if you're going to major in that, signals that you would
be good in the AI field?
Mr. Louie. Mathematics, clearly. Statistics, for example,
is something that we should be teaching in our high schools
because it's critical to the way we're thinking.
Second, even if you're in non-S&T areas, understanding how
AI--what you can trust it for, what you need to augment it
with, what you need to question about it, is going to be
critically important as well.
Ms. Clyburn. And, sir, I would follow my niece in
biomedical engineering.
Dr. Schmidt. And let me add that there is good news here.
Universities of the United States are generally seeing a huge
supply of computer science graduates and majors, and in
virtually every university I've studied, computer science is
now the number one major ahead of, for example, economics,
which is sort of a big surprise.
That workforce is coming into the private sector. It's not
coming into the government sector the way it should be. Because
in the private sector, they get to work on this stuff. For the
government, they have to do this billet and that billet and so
forth.
When I was running the DIB [Defense Innovation Board], we
met a brilliant--we were doing a Russia review in the National
Security Council--this brilliant young man who was busy doing
cyber attack analysis, and I asked what was his career path. He
said, next week I'm being transferred to a nontechnical
position in another part of my rotation. That's insane, and
that's how the government works. We need to address those
issues, and those are covered in our report.
Mr. Grothman. Thank you for giving me additional time.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Ranking Member Grothman.
Mr. Larsen is now recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Larsen. Over here. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for
recognizing me.
Twenty years ago when I came to Congress, I don't think I
would ever predicted 20 years later I would have said, I'm
really excited to read a report on AI. But I am, and two
particular sections or pages, I'm real excited about pages 77
and 78 and about 297 through about 300. Those are the education
bits, and I'll get the--Mr. Work, I'll let you know. You don't
have to read it.
But on that, a few years back we included in the NDAA
direction to the JAIC to develop an AI education strategy,
which they are beginning to roll out. My vision of it is to go
as deep as possible with as many folks--if I could just ask the
guys on the clock, they didn't reset the time.
Sorry about that. Yeah.
I think every woman and man in uniform and civilian in the
DOD should have some basic AI education. They don't have to be
coders. They don't have to be the ones leading the project, but
have some basic education, which is why page 77 is interesting.
I'm excited about having an AI-ready DOD by 2025 or warfighters
are enabled with baseline digital literacy and so on.
And then getting to pages 297 to 300, implementing that
even more. So I want to start with you, Commissioner Clyburn.
What exactly, you know, is your vision within the DOD on AI
education? Again, not everyone needs to be a coder. Not
everyone needs to be writing the software. But my idea is that
they should at least understand the weapon they're using,
whether it's an electronic or a software weapon, a hardware
weapon, the weapon someone else is using against us.
What's the--what was the vision of the Commission when you
came up with these recommendations?
Microphone.
Ms. Clyburn. It was a recognition that the next major
conflict will likely not be on the ground. But it will be AI-
inspired. And so you're right, from headquarters to the
tactical edge is how we phrase it and I really embrace that.
We have to be AI-ready. We have to be AI-trained. Those who
protect us should have that digital foundation. Those who excel
in computational thinking within the ranks, they should be
identified and supported.
It's a shame that we're losing all that talent, and they
should be able to advance. You know, those who are employ--we
need upskilling within the ranks. Junior officers from the
beginning need to be trained in AI concepts and they need to
continually be educated and certified.
So we can't stand still. We cannot ignore the fact that,
again, we are in an AI--we might not recognize it, but we are
in a AI revolution and we need to be prepared.
Mr. Larsen. Did you look at the JAIC's current work done on
this education strategy with these recommendations?
Ms. Clyburn. Yes, we did, and I will yield the rest of my
time to Mr. Work.
Mr. Larsen. Yeah, I was going to ask him. Good.
Secretary Work. Well, I'd just like to start, sir. Andrew
Moore--Dr. Andrew Moore, formerly of Carnegie Mellon, now at
Google, is one of our commissioners who leads line of effort
one, which is the research and development line of effort.
And I remember quite clearly the first time he was talking
to us and he said, look, you can get a lot accomplished with
young men and women who aren't a computer science graduate.
What they have to have is understanding of is computational
thinking, and that had a big impact on the way we were thinking
of this because he made the case that there's a lot of innate
talent in the force, we just have to identify those people.
He recommended, for example, if we gave just one class,
like, at the 7th grade, and another class in the 11th grade on
computational thinking, that you would have people who graduate
who would be immediately able to step onto a COCOM development
team.
So this led us to say we ought to add a section on
computational thinking in the Armed Forces--the ASVAB, the
Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery--and identify those
folks so that we could do it.
So computational thinking is as important for the whole
force as the hardcore Ph.D.s who would go into dedicated R&D
billets. So that would be one thing that I would say we all
need to think about how we would do that, and we recommend a
new National Defense Education Act II, and I would recommend
that Congress think about, you know, should there be
computational thinking type requirements that we establish to
allow the entire workforce that's going into the government and
into commercial sector, academia, et cetera, to expand these
things.
I'd also like to go back to one of the things on----
Mr. Larsen. If I--if I could, I wanted to go to Mr.
Schmidt.
Secretary Work. I'm sorry, sir.
Mr. Larsen. The--I'll be really quick with a question. We
talked in the past about China's declarative policy to want to
lead by 2030 in AI, and so why don't we just have a declarative
policy we're going to lead by 2029 and just go do it.
We have no idea how China is going to do it. They're just
going to say they're going to do it. And, frankly, whether or
not they're successful they would probably say they are
leading, in my view.
Why don't we just have a declarative policy we're going to
lead in AI? Does being AI-ready by 2025 in the DOD, as you
state in your report, does that equate with the general U.S.
leadership if we do the things in this report?
Mr. Langevin. If you can answer briefly.
Dr. Schmidt. It's a component but not sufficient. We
actually call for a technology competitive council to cover not
just AI but some of the other key areas. It's crucial that the
United States have a national plan for competitiveness globally
that addresses AI, semiconductors, synthetic bio, and a few
others, energy, et cetera.
Mr. Larsen. Yeah. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your indulgence. Thank you.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Mr. Larsen.
The ranking member of the full committee, Mr. Rogers, is
now recognized.
Mr. Rogers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Can you hear me?
Mr. Langevin. Yes, I can.
Mr. Rogers. Great.
Dr. Schmidt, just to follow up on Mr. Larsen's question, is
China leading in AI?
Dr. Schmidt. We spent a lot of time looking at this
question, and, in general, we are a little bit ahead but not
very much. They have more people coming. We're doing better in
algorithms, but they're coming.
They are doing better in some industries, in particular, in
financial transactions, electronic commerce, and surveillance.
We're doing better in some other areas of research. It's a
close race.
At the moment we're ahead. Our report specifically says
that we can lose our lead within a few years.
Mr. Rogers. Well, I share Mr. Larsen and Mr. Lynch's
observation. This Commission did some great work. This report
is not just going to sit on a shelf. We're going to do some
stuff here that's really meaningful. So I want to commend all
of you and thank you for your time in putting this together
because it's going to make a difference.
Commissioner Clyburn, I wanted to follow up on Ranking
Members Stefanik's questions about how we can get folks into
these jobs earlier than the 7-year timeline it would take to
graduate our first class.
Are there some scholarship opportunities that we can
provide people now to go to an existing university? We have got
some fine existing universities in this country right now that
can get some people trained earlier while we're standing up the
Digital Service Academy and getting the first few people
through there.
Ms. Clyburn. So we talk about the Reserve Officer Training
Corps. We talk about expanding that CyberCorps Scholarship for
Service program that is--that it is in place.
So, yes, sir, and there are some things that--outside of
that that I think are possible. So being targeted and sending
the signal. If you were to highlight just the two or three
things that I mentioned, I think that will encourage others to
follow.
So it's that down payment that we should make with the
existing programs and others modeled after successful programs
that I think will make a difference and enable us to move in
the right direction.
Mr. Louie. Let me also add that not every field requires
the degree.
Mr. Rogers. Exactly.
Mr. Louie. We have a great--we have a great enlisted force.
I mean, amazing. These kids know all about AI. How do I know
that? They're playing it on their video games.
Mr. Rogers. Yes.
Mr. Louie. What they're missing is the linkage between what
they're seeing in those games and what they're seeing in their
Department of Defense.
Mr. Rogers. Yes.
Mr. Louie. So with the appropriate certification and
badging program, we could also get our enlisted teams up and
ready and AI-certified and ready.
Dr. Schmidt. And imagine----
Mr. Rogers. Yeah, and that's what I was getting at, too.
Dr. Schmidt. Sir, imagine if you had a call for talent
where there was some kind of a test and a competition. I think
all of the commissioners would say to you you're going to be
really pleasantly surprised by the existing talent in the
government that's not correctly being used.
Mr. Rogers. Yeah, and I agree, and that's one of the things
I was hoping is that, you know, when we have this structure,
set up this Digital Service Academy, that it's not just focused
on getting people a BA [bachelor of arts] or an MS [master of
science] or Ph.D., that there are--other folks can get
certified that can go ahead and get in the workforce right
away.
And I'm also hopeful--you know, I first talked about this
concept with Dr. Schmidt about a year ago and very excited
about it. I'm curious to know, do you envision this being a
purely public sector entity that we stand up or is it going to
be a public-private partnership? How do you think it would be
structured? And also, I would ask this. You know, obviously,
this committee is concerned with the Defense Department making
sure we can defend ourselves with these technologies and this
skilled workforce.
But as you know, the Department of Homeland Security, the
Department of Treasury--there are other government agencies
that have the same shortfall in cyber and digital employees.
Can you see this [inaudible] as one day being opened up to
other agencies within the Federal Government?
Dr. Schmidt. We foresee it immediately being available for
all of the Federal activities, and my--I always prefer public
partner or public partner--public-private partnership, excuse
me--PPP--for the reasons that I think that's when America is
strongest.
Mr. Rogers. Great. Commissioner----
Ms. Clyburn. Sir, if you'll allow me a quick----
Mr. Rogers. Yes, go ahead.
Ms. Clyburn. I'm sorry. If you'll allow me a quick bite at
the apple. I could not go back home without affirming that the
2-year colleges offer substantial support and opportunities,
and they don't just offer 2-year degrees. They offer other
certifications that will enable this, too. So I couldn't go
back home without mentioning that.
Mr. Rogers. Well, I'm glad you did because that's exactly
what I was thinking about. It's a resource that we definitely
need to be tapping into because it would help fill a need that
we have got.
Commissioner Louie, do you believe the private sector even
wants to work with the Department of Defense or the government
on these kind of national security issues involving AI and
cyber?
Mr. Louie. I had the fortunate opportunity of standing up
In-Q-Tel, and there were a lot of people betting against it.
They asked the question, why would a young entrepreneur walk
across Sand Hill Road and ring the doorbell for In-Q-Tel or a
Federal intelligence agency?
Turns out that there are plenty of Americans who want to
serve and put their technologies in a way that protects this
country. There are some, of course, who will opt out, and
that's the American way.
We're not China, right. We can't--we do not compel
companies and individuals to work for the government or give up
their information. That sets us different--in a different and
better place than, I think, our competitors. So----
Mr. Rogers. Great. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Langevin. Very good. Thank you, Ranking Member, for
your questions.
And chair now recognizes Mr. Welch for 5 minutes.
Mr. Welch. Thank you very much. We really appreciate this
hearing and the work of the Commission.
One of the frustrations that I'm experiencing in listening
to this is that there appears to be a consensus--a bipartisan
consensus on the absolute urgency of following through on the
recommendations that you make.
Yet, on a practical level, there's impediments from us
doing it. Some are bureaucratic and, to some extent,
potentially congressional.
And I'll start with you, Dr. Schmidt. You do mention it's
the people who are the most important. But if they're in a
structure where the mission that they're doing is about
overcoming obstacles that hasn't integrated that mission into
its stated policy, how do we overcome that?
Dr. Schmidt. Part of our recommendations, as Chairman Work
recommended earlier, is to take the AI efforts and cause them
to report higher inside the military, and in the military,
because it's very hierarchical, having AI be a major component
of strategy at every level is one of the ways that the top-down
can work.
I always favor a top-down and bottoms-up approach. So I'd
like to see a DOD statement around AI that's much stronger than
we currently have with the JAIC. I'd also like to have a higher
reporting level, more resources, and so forth. But I'd also
like to have individual control at the commander level and the
COCOM level where they have flexible teams which can be used to
solve important national security problems, which would include
AI expertise.
You want to get both flexibility for the commanders as well
as priority at the highest level.
Mr. Welch. Mr. Work, let me go to you. Thank you for that.
What are the implications of a decision that AI is now core
and existential to our defense versus supplemental and
discretionary with respect to how it would affect other weapons
systems?
We have--as one of the witnesses said, we have these huge
platforms that have been components, major components, of our
defense strategy and it appears that AI cyberwarfare is really
the biggest threat.
So can you just elaborate on what would be involved in a
Pentagon shift in thinking and, frankly, a congressional shift
in thinking where implications would affect jobs in many
members' districts?
Secretary Work. We do not talk about this specifically in
the report. But very broadly, Mr. Welch, we are shifting into
an era of systems warfare. Both our adversaries--I mean, our
adversaries explicitly say this, and say the way we will defeat
the U.S. military is to have better operational systems, and
the better to way--and the way to get there is to inject AI
applications and autonomy into the system so it operates at a
faster speed and can operate more effectively.
So this is a big shift in thinking, going from platform-
like thinking to systems thinking, and trying to figure out how
these applications improve.
And in my view, all you need to have is, you know, cross-
functional teams that look at, say, our sensor group, and the
cross-functional team says the biggest return on investment is
to do machine learning on the sensor so that it can go through
the information and just pass on the data that is required,
which would make everything go faster, wouldn't clog the pipes,
et cetera.
And you would have someone do the same thing for our
command, control, and communications, and intelligence grids.
How would we have an AI-enabled application that would help
decision making?
So this is--this will literally affect every operation
mission that we do, and it's going to require a different way
of training our commanders and our people, a different way of
educating them and a different way of training them.
Mr. Welch. But it also requires the confidence of our
defense leaders that a change in direction is not only
desirable but, really, essential, that has implications on the
way we're doing business now--I mean, the higher education
process and political process. Care to comment in my remaining
12 seconds?
Secretary Work. Amen, sir. It all starts with trust. As
soon as we have demonstrated applications enough to where
commanders trust them, then you will see an accelerated
adoption. But trust is absolutely key.
Ms. Clyburn. And education starts at the top and continues
through the ranks.
Mr. Welch. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner. Thank you
all.
Mr. Langevin. Very good. Thank you, Mr. Welch.
Ms. Foxx is now recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. Foxx. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. For some reason, when I
turn on my mic, my video goes off. But there goes the video. So
I hope you can hear me.
Thank you for having this hearing, and it's been very, very
informative and very enlightening. And it's nice to see such
bipartisan agreement.
Mr. Schmidt, I know you're most comfortable with monopolies
from your days at Google, but why should we create a monopoly
in 5G?
Why can one company in concert with the Department of
Defense have a monopoly on 5G spectrum when having multiple
facility-based competition is what made the U.S. 4G market so
successful and why the app economy originated here?
Dr. Schmidt. Our report does not specifically suggest what
you just asked me about. But let me comment in general, that we
have taken a look at the 5G situation and China is perhaps 10
times ahead of us both in terms of speed as well as the number
of towers.
They have planned 1.3 million towers, for example, this
year in total, and it looks like the leadership that China is
going to have in 5G will become a significant national security
threat to the United States, partly because 5G is used in
autonomy, which we discuss in our report, and also because it
will create an ecosystem of applications.
Imagine if the key applications that are used 5 years from
now are based on the Chinese 5G network and not on American 5G
leadership. Over the last decade, we have, essentially, given
up leadership in that area, having--after having done a
fantastic job in 4G.
My view is that it is a national security problem that we
are not leading in 5G. I'll let you all debate the specific
solutions to that. I would encourage you to demand a strategy
from the various players that gets us at least equal to China
in terms of performance and coverage.
Ms. Foxx. Well, thank you for that. You know, it's been
reported that the spectrum-sharing arrangement would constitute
a boom for Alphabet and other big tech firms. This sharing
scheme seems to be closer to the nationalization of our
spectrum markets than anything else. To be blunt, I think all
our constituents, but particularly mine and the ones I hear
from, are tired of the stranglehold big tech firms have over
the markets.
The unchecked power of big tech's ability to corner
markets, marginalize competitors, and silence my fellow
Americans cannot be tolerated any further.
With that, Congress shouldn't be empowering market
mobilization--monopolization in this critical space. Our 5G
infrastructure creates digital highways that artificial
intelligence can drive on, and this Congress should not be
risking our competitive advantage over China by investing in
this untested and unproven nationalization framework.
Doing so would put broadband development--rural broadband
projects, and even national security at risk. As I said, I
believe that there's bipartisan concern about big tech's
antitrust problems.
I want to----
Dr. Schmidt. May I respond? May I respond, madam?
Ms. Foxx. Okay.
Dr. Schmidt. So in the first place, I no longer work at
Alphabet, but I have a large stock position in Alphabet.
Alphabet is not one of the beneficiaries of any of these 5G
activities at the moment, and the argument that you're making
about sharing is not technically correct. Your argument is,
fundamentally, that it would be better to have a highway
occupied by one car rather than having a highway have lots of
different cars on it.
The CBRS [Citizens Broadband Radio Service] option, which
is in the 3.5 gigahertz phase, proves that sharing works. We
need to solve our bandwidth problem. Personally, I have my own
technical views of how to solve this. But I do not want to
allow your statement to go unchallenged with respect to the
statement that we're okay.
We're not okay and we need a solution in this space that is
competitive with China.
Mr. Louie. Let me add, since I was one of the co-authors on
the 5G report for the Defense Innovation Board, we are not in
favor of monopolies. We do not believe that one company should
own it all. I think that's, fundamentally, anti-American.
On the other side of that equation, for us to be
competitive in 5G we need to have large continuous blocks of
spectrum available and not little small segments. Think of it
like this.
Think of going down the freeway in which you sell each lane
to a particular company, and you cannot change your lane once
you get on that road. Sharing, particularly in the DOD
spectrum, is the only way to allow broader use of our spectrum
and protect our military systems.
Our radars, our air-to-air, surface-to-air, our satellite
comms [communications] require sharing. Without that sharing,
we will not be competitive. The U.S. 5G is one of the slowest
in the world where our average throughputs are less than 50
megabits, compared to China, which is going at 300 megabits,
going to 1 gigabit.
If we want to be competitive and we want AI to drive on the
information highway, we have got to free up the lane. One car a
lane is not a solution.
Mr. Langevin. Very good.
Ms. Foxx. Thank you both. I want to build on something also
that Representative Rogers mentioned and----
Mr. Langevin. I believe the gentlelady's time has expired,
but briefly.
Ms. Foxx. Oh. Well, I wanted to push certification, Mr.
Chairman. I think we need to get alternatives to baccalaureate
degrees and push certification where we can.
Thank you for indulging me.
Mr. Langevin. Certainly. I thank the gentlelady for her
line of questions.
Mr. Khanna is now recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Khanna. Thank you, Chairman Langevin, and thank you to
Dr. Schmidt and particularly Commissioner Clyburn, and all the
commissioners for your excellent work.
Before I get to my question, I do have to address what
probably should be the headline of this hearing, Representative
Grothman's comments that somehow that the smartest immigrants
are going to Australia and New Zealand and we're not getting
the smartest immigrants.
I have a number of comments, but I guess I just for
educational purposes, maybe Dr. Schmidt, could you comment on
the intelligence of Sergey Brin and Satya Nadella and Eric
Yuan? I don't see Australia and New Zealand having produced all
these tech companies. And what--how would you characterize the,
quote/unquote, ``intelligence'' of immigrants coming to the
United States?
Dr. Schmidt. America has benefitted enormously from high-
skills immigration. I have personally been the beneficiary as
the companies that I have been working for were founded by such
people, and they're incredibly brilliant.
We need them to drive our tech sector. We need to create
wealth in our stock market. We need them to pay--help pay the
taxes for our government. I can go on and on about the quality
of immigration.
At one point, I was sitting at Google and I realized half
people in the senior executives were immigrants, many them from
South, Southern Asia.
Mr. Khanna. You know, the other thing that I think I
understood Congressman Grothman to be saying is that we should
have some kind of a math and science requirement for
immigrants.
I think the American public would love to have a math and
science requirement for Members of Congress. I think that would
probably be a better start. I would challenge Congressman
Grothman.
Maybe you and I can take a math and science test and ask
all of our immigrants also take a hypothetical test, and my
guess is I wouldn't be surprised what the results are. I hope
you'll take me up on that.
But what do the commissioners think of the idea of having a
math or science test for immigrants? I don't understand.
Did Madison or Jefferson put that in the Constitution that
we should have math scores for who should let in--we should let
into this country? Would any of the commissioners please
comment on that statement?
Mr. Louie. I'm happy to answer at least part of it. The
particular line of questioning around having science and
technology skills for our recommended visas for anybody with a
degree in S&T is pretty straightforward.
I don't think any of us are advocating that we should have
a generic test like the way you have to pass the other
immigration examination on American citizenship or any other
kinds of activities.
But we need science and technology skills and that is
clear. We are not going to be competitive without that talent.
We need to grow them internally, we need to get them from
outside, and we need to encourage people who are educated in
this country of our very best universities, both public and
private, to allow them to practice their knowledge in the
United States and not abroad.
Mr. Khanna. Personally, I agree with that. But just to be
clear, you, clearly, disagree with Representative Grothman's
suggestion that somehow we should have a math or science
requirement for our immigrants.
Mr. Louie. I don't believe that was the question I was
answering.
Mr. Khanna. I'm saying you would disagree with his
statement on that, correct, and the Commission would? I don't
think anyone in America, a reasonable person, thinks we should
have requirements for immigrants to take math and science
tests.
Dr. Schmidt. In the excess of clarity, the report does not
make a claim in this area, and so speaking for the Commission,
the Commission does not take a position on this. We have said
repeatedly high-skills immigration in our Nation is very
important.
Mr. Khanna. Let me just change directions, because I was
just so struck by those comments of Representative Grothman I
don't--I thought they had to be addressed.
But let me ask the final question, which is on a AI, and a
two-part question. One, it seems to me that it's in our
country's advantage to move towards forms of AI that aren't
relying simply on data, and when you look at some of the work
Jeff Hawkins has done on how the human mind works in terms of
maps of reference, and you look at Tenenbaum at MIT
[Massachusetts Institute of Technology] and what he's being
able to do, saying, you know, a child doesn't need thousands of
pictures to understand what a cat is but understanding how
categories of human perception work, and that it would be
valuable for the United States to invest in that kind of a
general learning AI so that we're not dependent on data because
China will have a huge advantage over data.
If you could address that, and then second, address what it
means for us to have human judgment still and human control so
that the defense decisions are not being just made by
algorithmic AI but by people, really, still having human
judgment over that.
Dr. Schmidt. Quick answer to the first part. Bob, you'll
take the second part.
You're exactly right that, right now, these algorithms need
an enormous amount of data. There's very promising research
about much more limited data training models, and I think
eventually this issue around data will become less important
and the rise of this next generation of algorithms that you
have suggested will be the story.
It's crucially important that this next generation of
algorithms get invented in the United States.
Bob.
Secretary Work. DARPA describes AI coming in three waves.
The first wave was what it refers to as expert systems.
These are physics-based models that are quite capable. But they
have now been supplanted by second-wave systems, which are
statistical machine learning.
There are a lot of applications still for first-wave
systems. So I would agree with you that there will be
applications that just are physics-based models or rules-based
models, if then.
They're very, very good to explain. Like, if you had a
safety accident, you can go back through the coding and say
this is exactly what caused the accident, and in machine
learning sometimes we won't know exactly why the algorithm
chose the action that it did.
As far as defense decisions, the clearest expression that I
can offer you, sir, is DODD, Department of Defense Directive,
3000.09, for example, that says, ``For weapons with autonomous
functionalities, they will be designed and operated to maintain
appropriate human judgment over the use of force,'' period, end
of story. The DOD Law of War manual says you cannot transfer
responsibility to a machine under any circumstances.
So in my view, the Department of Defense has been very
clear that when it comes to decisions over human life that will
always be a human making those decisions.
We also make a clear recommendation that we should declare
that machines will never ever be given the authority to order a
preemptive nuclear strike. The use of nuclear weapons should be
off the table and we should enter in discussions with all of
our rivals to see if everyone would agree with that.
Mr. Louie. Let me just add----
Mr. Khanna. Thank you. Yeah, please.
Mr. Langevin. Briefly. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Louie. Just quickly. Look, we were very clear not only
in 3000.09 that we must continue to comply with international
humanitarian laws. That is what separates the U.S. from some of
our competitors, and that humans, commanders, to be held
accountable for the deployment of any such weapons onto the
battlefield.
Mr. Langevin. Yeah. And it's why--I'll just comment, that's
why it's so important that we have international engagement and
leadership on AI. Although we may view things that way, other
countries that are not as friendly to us may view things and do
things very differently. We can't let that happen. So
international engagement is going to be critical on that topic,
going forward.
Mr. Khanna, thank you for your questions.
Mr. Khanna. Thank you.
Mr. Langevin. Mr. Moore is now recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Moore. Thank you, Chairman. I am encouraged by
Commissioner Clyburn's focus on retention. It reflects many of
my concerns about a greater retention issue that we have across
sort of all branches of military among our Active Duty labor
force.
And, admittedly, while I'm new to the committee and new to
my time in Congress--so I'm early in my tenure--some of that is
anecdotal, as I speak with--as I speak with fighter pilots in
the OPSTEMPO [operations tempo] that the incentives to go to
the private sector are great and there's--it's growing in that
regard. And I have--I have big concerns there and I hope to use
my time in this committee to address that.
And so with that same thought process, I want to make sure
that we're not going down the same path, that maybe as we talk
about the potential of an academy, which, with bipartisan
support, is something that I could very well be excited about,
you know, is 5 years enough, right.
This concept of, you know, just putting a time limit on
what you're expected to do, is that enough, or do we--are we
going to see some of the same issues as soon as that 5-year
timeline kind of hits there's--because there's so much need in
the private sector right now with AI and cybersecurity. Are we
going to see that same retention or attrition issues there?
So I'll direct my question to Commissioner Clyburn.
Anybody, any of you are welcome to comment. Thank you.
Dr. Schmidt. Can I add something ahead of Commissioner
Clyburn?
Mr. Moore. Please.
Dr. Schmidt. I was really struck in my work with the
Defense Department of how many people work there for low pay
and in difficult conditions because they were patriotic. And
the ones that I spoke with did not, fundamentally, leave for
money.
They left because the opportunity in their career was more
interesting in the private sector, that the work that they
wanted to do, they could not do well as Federal or military
employees.
That's got to get fixed. To provide leadership at the
national level, we're going to have to have places for these
people to serve while they're in the government, and this is
true not just for the DOD but any aspects of the Federal
Government.
We stated earlier we believe these people to exist, we
believe they're already in your employ, and we believe they're
underutilized.
To me, that's a big priority for this committee to think
about. How do we create it so we keep these people rather than
allow them to become disaffected and then leave for higher
paying jobs.
Commissioner Clyburn.
Ms. Clyburn. So I will do something that's unusual and be
brief. I believe what we can do and what we should do is ensure
that the tools and the infrastructure inside of government for
those who want to stay, who are willing to stay, as the
chairman mentioned, that they have the tools needed in order to
be productive, in order to be challenged, in order for us to
meet our national security objectives.
That's the biggest issue. It's the frustration inside of
the infrastructure that needs to be fixed. So if we fix that, I
don't think we will have as much of a retention problem. Those
who want to run after money, they will do so.
But there are more people who want to serve, but they are
not going to go to work every day and get frustrated about
advancing, being onboarded, and a lot of the other issues that
we enumerate in this 450-plus pages of light reading.
Mr. Louie. Let me just add 10 seconds to this level.
In our discussions both in the AI Commission and my work
with the DIB, it was pretty clear we had a large number of
junior officers departing and the reason why they were
departing was because of the lack of understanding by their
senior officers of what these technologies can do. That
frustration forced them to go choose employment elsewhere.
They are committed to this country. They are committed to
the services. But we need to educate our seniors, not just our
junior officers.
Mr. Moore. There's an incredible amount of bureaucracy that
does exist in these situations. I think that actually gets to a
lot of your points. I support that and hope to be a part of
finding ways for that labor force to be engaged and committed
to continuing to move forward.
Because while it's a great thing for private economies, to
have such good training at the government level, we do have to
address this. So I appreciate those comments and hope to work
with you on all of that.
Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Mr. Moore.
Mr. DeSaulnier is recognized for 5 minutes.
[No response.]
Mr. Langevin. Is Mr. DeSaulnier there? Oh, you're on mute.
Mr. DeSaulnier. I just have to have the mental adeptness to
remember to turn my mute off, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
I just--I was saying that I want to concur with my
colleague from the Bay Area, Mr. Khanna's comments about
immigration, the best and the brightest and testing.
Clearly, we have seen it here in my district and I know he
has there in terms of the importance of what Dr. Schmidt said
of attracting and having attracted so many good people to this
field and others.
I want to switch a little bit to--or a lot--to bots. I have
had a fair amount of success around this issue in legislation,
and some of the comments in your report about AI and botnets.
There's a quote in the report from the Justice Department:
``Control of hundreds of thousands or even millions of
computers to advance their schemes using AI and botnets.''
We know from our investigation of the last elections and
the Mueller report how these were used. We know how they're
used domestically and for foreign.
So the Commission, again, says in its report that this may
become more powerful with advanced AI, not just directly
spreading malware but harvesting both computerization power and
data to put forward further offensive training in ways that
were not previously possible.
Now, Mr. Louie, can you talk about this threat to our
infrastructure--transportation, utilities, health, and
financial--please?
Mr. Louie. This is a real threat to our critical
infrastructure flow. As problematic as botnets are, AI-driven
botnets are operating at machine speeds against our defenses,
which have, still, people in the loop rather than on the loop.
It's a losing strategy and it's clear to us that our
adversaries are using not only advanced technologies like
botnets, they're going after supply chain as with the
SolarWinds attacks and they're also using it in disinformation
campaigns.
And the next step is to use disinformation campaigns
against machines, to give machines and feed machines
disinformation to make machines do the wrong thing. That
adversarial AI is a real threat.
Mr. DeSaulnier. And, Mr. Louie, just following up, there is
a section that the commissioner recommends us passing in
Section 4 of the International Cyber Crime Prevention Act.
To the degree you're capable, could you talk on my comments
or the ability of that to help stem this threat--pardon the--
pardon the choice of words--and what might we do in addition to
this?
Mr. Louie. It's clear we have to defend forward, right.
Playing a defensive posture waiting for the attack and trying
to build a higher wall or a deeper moat is a failed strategy.
Second is that we have to work with our allies. If there
are criminal activities, we need to raise the costs of those
activities to those individuals or the nation-states that are
prosecuting the attack against us.
Right now, the cost to attack is so low, the consequences
are almost nonexistent, that we are inviting attack after
attack after attack, and we will not stem it by simply having a
higher wall of cyber defense.
Mr. DeSaulnier. Thank you.
Dr. Schmidt. Could I add----
Mr. DeSaulnier. Sure.
Dr. Schmidt. Could I add, Representative? The traditional
framing of this is the Russia election attacks of 2016, which
were done by humans, not by computers, as best we could tell.
There's every reason to think that not only will a country
like Russia try to do this, but that many nonaligned groups--
terrorist groups, unrelated groups--that are trying to disrupt
the democratic processes of the democratic countries for
whatever reason--economic, financial, political, just evil--
because the technologies are now so broadly available.
So one of the things we talk about in the attack--in the
book is that the software diffusion, right, the ability for
people to access this is now--is the cat is out of the bag,
whatever metaphor you care about.
And we have got to get ourselves organized around the fact
that there will be continuous attacks on our information space,
which you are describing as bots. But they're really much more
than that.
It's attacks in terms of the quality of information, the
target of information, attacks on the individuals involved,
misusing their personal information, and this is also a
national security issue coming forward.
Mr. DeSaulnier. And I would add in the sophistication of
neuroscience and targeting, not just to individuals and
demographics, but as you know.
Dr. Schmidt, if I could just--I want to take this
opportunity because you're here, as somebody from the Bay Area
who is very proud of our tech industry but recently has become
critical and chagrined, in the sense of national security we
often hear about scale. That's important to have scale, not
just in tech but in finance we've heard it.
So could you comment on that, just briefly, the importance
of scale with some of the challenges we have had in regards to
concentration, to Ms. Foxx's comments?
Dr. Schmidt. I know here there is a concern about this. I
will tell you that I would like to win the global competition
and have America win in global competition.
That is going to require large companies because of the
scale issues, the economic issues, the number of people. The
projects and products that we talk about in these economies--in
these companies take thousands and thousands of people and
many, many hundreds of millions of dollars to build.
Those are problems of scale. We have an incredibly vibrant
and diverse venture ecosystem with an awful lot of new
startups, huge valuations. It's all incredibly exciting.
My strong--and this is my recommendation and has nothing to
do with the AI report--my strong recommendation is if you don't
like what one of the big tech companies are doing, find a way
to regulate their behavior through the normal mechanisms.
I'm sure there are issues that need to be regulated. I
would do it that way.
Mr. DeSaulnier. Mr. Chairman, thank you. I'd love to follow
up with you, Dr. Schmidt, because we want to get the right
balance in here.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your indulgence.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Mr. DeSaulnier.
Now the chair recognizes Mr. Higgins for 5 minutes.
Mr. Higgins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The timing and
purpose of this joint hearing is crucial, as we discussed last
month in our joint hearing with the House Homeland Security
Committee.
Our foreign adversaries have elevated the battlefields into
the cyber realm, artificial intelligence, and let us not--let
us not fail to observe the Chinese tremendous advancements in
quantum technologies, which I believe is inseparable from the
conversation regarding artificial intelligence.
And I would like to ask the panel and want to get to my
question rather quickly because I expect the answer to be
complex. The theft of our technologies as of last year--as
recent as last year the FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation]
advised that they investigated more than a thousand cases of
Chinese theft of U.S. technology.
That's inside our universities and our government research
and development laboratories, and I believe--and I would like
the panelists to consider how we take further action to protect
our technologies.
The report that we're discussing today is incredible work.
I believe it'll be recognized as very significant work that you
ladies and gentlemen have done, and we thank you for it.
It's going to take us a while to get our head wrapped
around this. A line struck me from your report. You stated that
for the first time since World War II, America's technological
predominance, the backbone of its economic and military power,
is under threat, and that's a quote.
I asked Dr. Schmidt to reflect upon that statement and tell
America how the Federal Government and the private sector can
work together to train the next generation of patriots, both
civilian and military, to protect our research from theft and
to gain dominance in these fields.
And as related to that question, then I'm going to turn it
to you, Dr. Schmidt, until recently, every nation in our--in
our military academies we teach that each nation enjoys a
certain degree of elements of power, that being the military,
geographic, economic, cultural, and political.
It seems to me and many of us that a new element of power
must be considered as we balance our own strengths against that
of the world.
That would be artificial intelligence and the quantum era.
And it seems to me that China appears to be leading the world
in artificial intelligence theft and quantum technology.
Dr. Schmidt, will you address that, please? Based upon your
background, I believe you can give us a solid answer or at
least guide us.
Dr. Schmidt. Thank you. Two years ago, China announced a
strategy with a goal to dominate the following industries:
software, AI, semiconductors, energy, robotics, and high-speed
transportation and biotech and quantum.
Well, that's my whole world. That's everything I care
about. It's furthermore everything that is driving the
renaissance in America in American manufacturing, American
leadership, American global platforms.
We lack a strategy as a country to work in those areas. We
must organize it.
Mr. Higgins. Exactly.
Dr. Schmidt. We must, must, must. It's a huge issue. You
highlighted the quantum issue. It should upset us that quantum
leadership in China is ahead of America in certain aspects of
the quantum work. We need to get our act together.
In order to do that, we need to do a number of things. The
first is we need to work on our own workforce, our own STEM
education, as we highlighted. We also need to recognize that we
are critically dependent upon foreign researchers and foreign
graduate students.
One of the things we did in the AI report is we studied
where were the top researchers coming from, and many of the top
researchers are, in fact, graduate students who are coming from
China, who are learning and researching in our universities.
So we're empathetic that we have to keep them coming and
keep them in the country and keep working on these things to
help our Nation. Those are the best solutions that I have for
you.
There's, obviously, a concern about intellectual property
theft. To the degree that it occurs and we know it occurs, it
should be prosecuted to the fullest possibility of the law.
And you can imagine that for Chinese students, for example,
you could do investigations in that matter. You could also have
all sorts of other ways about validating.
But we need these people in America working on these hard
problems and we need a national strategy to win.
Mr. Louie. And we need to have--give the tools to our
universities and research centers and companies to protect
themselves. Well, it's really hard to protect yourself against
a nation-state.
We tend to look at cybersecurity breaches as an IT
[information technology] problem. Our adversaries look at it as
a domain of warfare, and you're not going to win in that
strategy. We need to better share information, create useful
interchanges between enterprises, academia, research centers,
and the government.
We can protect not everything but we can protect those
things that are most vital to us. What's the point of leading
in research if the other guy can just simply steal it?
We have to put up the appropriate protections. We need to
reform our IP laws and we need to have partnerships with our
allies to make it expensive for those acts to continue to go
unchecked.
Ms. Clyburn. And, sir, we need to give the tools to law
enforcement in order to recognize and take action.
Mr. Higgins. I thank the chairman and the panelists.
Mr. Chairman, God bless you for allowing us some indulgence
with time, and I yield, good sir.
Mr. Langevin. Very good. Thank you. Mr. Higgins.
Mr. Kim is now recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Kim. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you everybody for
coming together here.
And I've had the chance to be able to go through the report
at length and then sat down with your staff. So I've gone
through a lot of that and feel very good about the
recommendations and I'm grateful for your work on that.
But I wanted us to kind of take a step back here. As we're
looking at something that would be potentially just a major
undertaking in terms of structuring our national security, our
defense innovation efforts, and potentially billions of dollars
to be able to jettison, you know, some of the old standing ways
in which we have been doing this, the question that I struggle
with is, how do we best explain this to the American people?
You know, how do we talk about this complexity in a human
way to people in my district? And, you know, so I want to just
ask Dr. Schmidt and then Secretary Work, when it comes to
clearly articulating in a very understandable way how the
threat will manifest and what people can understand and wrap
their heads around, both in terms of the threats and the
opportunities.
I would appreciate your perspective on that because I think
people in my district, they understand the threats of
transnational terrorism. They understand the threats of
conventional warfare, that kind of way. It's something that is
visible and tangible to them.
But they struggle, and, frankly, I struggle and others
struggle to really understand what exactly are we talking about
in terms of a threat here?
Dr. Schmidt. Well, I always start from the standpoint of
America as a place of great freedom and our values, and I am
concerned that if we lose leadership in this area, the
information freedom we have, the free speech we have, all of
the things that have made us as a great country will be
materially affected by those changes.
And the way that would occur is because AI is,
fundamentally, software and software can be deployed to change
the way you perceive the world, as we have discussed in the
testimony so far.
There are plenty of military comments that Bob should make.
But I think the impact on our society when a targeted opponent
comes into our networks and our information space and begins to
screw around could lead to a real increase in distrust in our
government, a lack of patriotism, and a lack of belief in our
country.
Secretary Work. I would have started exactly where Chairman
Schmidt did. A technological competition is a values
competition at its core. The way these applications will be
used will reflect the governance system of the country that is
pursuing them.
For our American citizens, all we have to do is say look at
how these technologies are being used in China: population
surveillance, lack of privacy, lack of civil liberties,
minority suppression.
We do not want a world in which these values are reflected
through technology and the infrastructures that support them.
And it is important for the United States, as the greatest
democracy in the world, to apply these applications in a way
that are consistent with privacy, civil liberties, and law.
Depending on who you listen to, either a McKinsey or a BCG
[Boston Consulting Group], the winner of the AI competition
will accrue a $13 to $15 trillion economic advantage. They also
say same things for, like, 5G. 5G might be $5 to $7 billion--
trillion, excuse me.
So these technologies will affect our lives in ways that
will make our citizens healthier, live longer, have better
lives, be able to do their work better, be able to have just
new ways of entertainment.
This is a technology competition that is very important for
us to win.
Mr. Kim. Yeah. Well, thank you.
Ms. Clyburn. Sir.
Mr. Kim. Go ahead.
Ms. Clyburn. I'm sorry. Sir, when I got my first coupon in
the checkout line, I was excited. Oh, my gosh, I'm saving money
here. Then I started noticing my social interactions online and
seeing these ads pop up, and then I started wondering and
learning more about algorithms.
Then I started figuring certain things out, that my digital
footprint, my information, my pattern, can not only be
monetized but can be used against me.
So when it comes to what we're speaking of today and
explaining to everyday--your constituents, everyday people who
are trying to save money and trying to make their lives
easier--that convenience, used in the wrong way in the wrong
hands, could make us the most vulnerable people ever, and
that's why this is important.
Mr. Kim. Thank you. Well, look, I'd like to build out that
story and that narrative with you all. So let's keep working on
that.
Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Mr. Kim.
Mr. Johnson is now recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Johnson from Georgia?
Mr. Langevin. That's you, sir.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. All right, thank you. I want to
thank you, Mr. Chairman, and also Chairman Lynch for holding
this hearing.
China has embarked on what the Commission described in its
report as a, quote, ``multi-pronged campaign of licit and
illicit transfer--technology transfer. In effect,'' the
Commission argues, ``China is using American taxpayers' dollars
to fund its military and economic modernization,'' end quote.
By some estimates, China's technology theft costs the
United States between $300 billion and $600 billion a year. One
of the several ways that China is seeking to gain a competitive
edge is through venture capital investments in U.S.-based AI
startups.
In response, the Commission recommends in its final report
that Congress require investors from U.S. competitors to
disclose transactions in a broader set of sensitive
technologies to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the
United States.
Mr. Louie, how broad is Chinese investment in U.S.-based AI
startups?
Mr. Louie. The Chinese are--both companies as well as
regional and university organizations are active throughout the
entire United States doing investments.
Some of it's benign. Some of it's just because they want to
make money. Some of it's suspect. But here's our challenge.
CFIUS still remains fundamentally a voluntary series of
regulations.
We need to make sure that it is no longer voluntary. If
you're taking money from potential adversaries or competitors,
like China and Russia, it needs to be disclosed.
Second, we have to make--we have been waiting for years now
in the technology community for the list of the critical
technologies that will be deemed critical for the United
States.
We still have not produced that list. Technology companies
are guessing on whether or not something requires disclosure or
not. We need to make it clear that these kinds of technologies
like AI, like microelectronics, like quantum computing, any of
these critical--biotechnologies--any of these critical areas,
if you're taking direct foreign investment or indirect
investments from these nation-states, they need to be
disclosed.
Most will be fine. But a few of them may not be. But we
need to know and companies have a responsibility to disclose
that.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Thank you.
What regulatory framework for disclosure of transactions is
currently in place for venture capital investments and how
would requiring disclosure to CFIUS help to protect sensitive
AI technologies?
Mr. Louie. It's hard to protect what you don't know it's
happening. So the first one is just bring their knowledge up.
Second is for those critical pieces of technology that we
deemed as critical, we need to make sure that State is
empowered and has the skill sets to review those technologies
aggressively.
You have this thing called a short form and a long form
that you have to fill out, right? There's a lot of paperwork in
the long form, and the short form is a little bit easier.
I think we should take a look at the filing requirements,
particularly for venture capital, and to make sure that people
are well educated in the regulatory regime.
The good news is most tech companies and early startups use
very competent law firms. Having the law firms be a partner in
this matter is going to be really critical for us to be able to
not only protect the technologies, but quite frankly, protect
those entrepreneurs' technologies.
The last thing an entrepreneur wants to do is invest it,
take some technology that they put their hearts and lives in
and have a competitor overseas suddenly show up with that
technology and compete against them.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Thank you. Would any of the other
panelists like to comment?
[No response.]
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Okay. In a July 2020 report, the
Center for Security and Emerging Technology at Georgetown found
that out of 208 global Chinese professional associations, or
CPAs, more than half advertised on their websites that they,
quote, ``exchange technical information, bring scientists to
China, or contributed to specific Chinese talent plans,'' end
quote.
Interestingly, however, the report also found that CPAs
that advertise the transfer of technology in Chinese also are
more likely to omit this information about that aspect of their
missions from the English-language versions of their websites.
Mr. Louie, why might CPAs hide this information from
English-speaking members?
Mr. Langevin. If you could answer briefly, please, Mr.
Louie, because the gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Louie. I think it's difficult to read people's minds.
But I would say that they are, clearly, attempting to encourage
American companies to put technologies overseas.
And my biggest point is the relationship between technology
transfer from U.S. to China and China to U.S. is asymmetric.
For Americans to invest in Chinese companies require huge
amounts of regulatory--Chinese regulatory hurdles that you have
to come, whereas Chinese investments in the U.S. has almost
none, and we've got to fix that asymmetry. It doesn't help us
on either--in either direction.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Mr. Johnson.
Ms. Houlahan is now recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. Houlahan. Thank you, Chairman, and I hope you all can
hear me. I have a lot of questions and so I'll try and move
through them quickly.
My first set of questions is for Chairman Schmidt. I really
appreciate the commissioners'--the Commission's conclusion and
recommendations that help us find and build a full-time cadre
for public servants with digital experience, and our success
and failure in this definitely will hinge on the Federal
Government's ability to compete with the private sector. And
I'm really enthusiastic about the idea and concept of a Digital
Service Academy.
But I'd like to hear more about your cost estimates for
that, time and other resources, what it takes to get this kind
of an undertaking off the ground, and could you also talk us
through your cost-benefit analysis, if there is one, of
alternatives that might be less expensive like, perhaps,
dramatically scaling up STEM-focused ROTC programs such as the
one that I participated in?
Dr. Schmidt. Perhaps Commissioner Clyburn would like to
help me. These--it's a false equivalency to say that these
somehow are related to the military and ROTC activities.
We strongly support the military and ROTC activities, and
they are phenomenal and we should invest more in them,
especially with respect to specialized skills--the digital
skills.
In addition, the civilian workforce needs upgrading and the
two are separate. The economics around the civilian workforce
one are pretty straightforward.
The cost of hiring the people, the cost of paying them, and
so forth and so on, is much less expensive if they're going
through a 4-year program which has been subsidized to some
degree by the government and where they have a 5-year
commitment to work.
So the economics actually work.
Mignon.
Ms. Clyburn. Yes, I will have to get back in touch with you
in terms of the actual amount of shoring up a full academy. But
the per student--the last figure I remember was a $50,000 per,
you know, life cycle in terms of the actual expenditure per
student.
But my answer to you is what's the cost of not doing
anything? That cost is--cannot be quantified. It is a negative
and a burden on our system, and we must address this
immediately.
Ms. Houlahan. Yeah, I completely agree with that. In fact,
that's kind of part of my follow-on question, which is that I
believe, Chairman Schmidt, you mentioned something about the
universities having offered to help get the DSA, the Digital
Service Academy, stood up.
Could you maybe explain how that might happen, how they
might plan to do that? And how do universities foresee being
able to be supportive of this kind of initiative?
Secretary Work. Well, ma'am, just to follow up, Appendix E
in the report outlines what we believe are the recommended
investments and all of our recommendations. Our estimate for
the Digital Service Academy is that a $40 million initial
investment would get us on the way.
We did not make a calculation on how many--how much per
year. But, for example, the STEM Corps or the Digital Corps in
the Department of Defense, we thought $5 million in FY 2022 and
$5 million in FY 2023 would allow you to essentially start the
framework, and the National Reserve Digital Corps, managed
through the Office of Management and Budget, about $16 million.
Now, these----
Ms. Houlahan. And that--and that actually leads, and I'm
sorry to interrupt. I'm just trying to make sure that I ask,
you know, probative questions that help kind of get us to where
we need to be, which is, I believe, in support of these kinds
of ideas.
This last question is for Commissioner Clyburn and it has
to do with the Digital Corps that we're just talking about.
I'm also really interested in the idea of a Reserve
Component. I also was a reservist myself for many years and was
never, frankly, called upon. I'm an engineer.
And I was wondering if you might, you know, kind of think
about how to imagine the opportunity for people to participate
in that while coming in and out of private--the private sector.
How do you recommend the idea and how do we address potential
conflicts with that?
Ms. Clyburn. Your last thing was potential--well, let me
say that the benefits are many. These individuals could come
in, triage, help, assist, augment, at critical points in the
cycle. If they are dedicated to a particular agency, it could
make a world of difference.
And I struggled over the last part of your question.
Ms. Houlahan. Just the potential conflicts. You know, if
you're coming in and out of the private sector, maybe even the
defense industrial sector, and you are coming in and out as a
reservist into this Digital Corps concept, what kind of
conflicts could we foresee and how would we be able to address
them?
Ms. Clyburn. Well, Dr. Schmidt might be able to speak on
that head on. But there would not be a--there should be a
vetting process. There should be, I believe, you know, ways to
address that, at least initially, in terms of the skills--the
digital skills and the opportunity to enhance that three P or
P3 partnership is worth some of the risks, I believe, moving
forward.
Ms. Houlahan. Thank you. And I apologize. I've run out of
time so I will yield back, Chairman.
Dr. Schmidt. Just as a comment, Congresswoman, your service
and in the Reserves was not called on because undoubtedly they
didn't know how to find you and why you were so valuable.
So there is a demand-side problem where the government
doesn't know that you're available and they can't take
advantage of your skills. We have got to get that fixed.
Ms. Houlahan. Concur. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Langevin. Yeah, completely concur. That was a great
point to raise. Very good.
Well, this has been a great discussion. Are there any
members that have not asked a question that would like to
recognized?
[No response.]
Mr. Langevin. Okay. Hearing none, I just want to thank our
witnesses for your testimony today. This has been invaluable.
The report that you've produced is going to be both
foundational and enduring, I have no doubt, as we confront the
challenges and opportunities presented before us in harnessing
the power of AI, and I know it will be very informative for
Members of Congress and staff as we draw upon your expertise
and all the time and the effort that went into your hearings
and putting the report together.
Before I close out the hearing, I just wanted to yield to
the ranking member in case you had any final thoughts or
comments, Elise.
Ms. Stefanik. Thank you so much, Chairman Langevin, and
thank you, thank you, to the commissioners for their tremendous
work. It is going to help guide us in the future for an
effective whole-of-government approach.
I also appreciate your focus on the workforce challenge
that is so urgent that lies in front of us. There is
significant bipartisan interest in tackling this workforce
issue with alacrity.
So thank you for the great work. We look forward to
integrating many of your recommendations through the National
Defense Authorization Act this year, as we did in the last
Congress, working on a bipartisan basis with Jim and our
colleagues on the subcommittee and full committee.
And thanks for coming in today and dedicating so much time.
I yield back.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you. Yeah, well said.
Dr. Schmidt. And, Mr. Chairman, on behalf of the
Commission, I would like to say, once again, that it has been a
privilege and an honor for the commissioners and Commission to
serve you.
We remain ready and able and willing to work on this to
make sure that we get to the great outcome for America.
Thank you so much.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you.
Secretary Work. And, Mr. Chairman, if you'd allow me----
Mr. Langevin. Yes, go ahead, Mr. Grothman. Go ahead,
Ranking Member Grothman, go ahead.
Mr. Grothman. Right. I'd just like to thank you as well. It
is a very important issue. It's an issue we cannot afford to
fail on and can't afford to lose on. I hope this committee has
other hearings on this topic as time goes on.
I appreciate all the work that went into report. the
report, and thank you for coming to Washington today.
Mr. Langevin. Excellent.
Secretary Work. Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to add that we
can provide the committees with a classified briefing to give a
fuller picture of how China and Russia are approaching this
competition, and I feel like I'm probably as immersed in this
as much as anyone and there are things in the intelligence
record that, quite frankly, surprised me very much.
So we stand ready to come over and give that briefing to
either the committee or to members of the committee or however
you would like to see it.
Mr. Langevin. Very good. Yeah, and thank you, Secretary
Work, for raising that point and we will certainly take you up
on that. I look forward to a classified session where we can
get into some of those more sensitive details.
But, again, on behalf of all of my colleagues on both
committees, I know Mr. Lynch had to leave but on his behalf as
well, we just want to thank you for your extraordinary
contributions to this area of artificial intelligence.
As I said, it will be a foundational document and very
instructive in helping us and guiding us as we develop policies
and legislation, going forward, to maximize the opportunities
of AI.
So thank you all very much. I look forward to staying in
touch. With that, I thank the members for their questions and,
with that, this hearing stands adjourned.
I thank staff for all their hard work in putting this
together, too. Thank you.
Hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 1:35 p.m., the subcommittees were
adjourned.]
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A P P E N D I X
March 12, 2021
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PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
March 12, 2021
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[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING
March 12, 2021
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. MOULTON
Mr. Moulton. Dr. Schmidt, your report cites the Future of Defense
Task Force report, which I co-led last year. Both our reports agree
that the Department of Defense has a long way to go before it can
achieve competitive advantage in the field of AI, and both reports
recognize that achieving that competitive advantage will require
significant investment from the Department and U.S. Government writ-
large. The Department pays a lot of lip service to technologies of the
future like AI, but continues to pour billions of dollars into
platforms of the past. Do you believe the Department can achieve its
modernization goals, and the goals of your report, without reallocating
investments that currently go to legacy systems, platforms, and
concepts of operation?
Dr. Schmidt. The AI Commission's Final Report does not identify
specific systems, platforms, or concepts that the Department should
retire, or suggest specific areas where the Department should reduce
its investments. Instead, the report outlines how the Department should
approach the development and management of competitive technology
investments. As a first step, DOD should produce a Technology Annex to
the National Defense Strategy (NDS). This annex should identify and
prioritize emerging technologies and applications that can enable the
capabilities and concepts that will be required to solve the
operational challenges outlined in the NDS. The annex should be more
than a simple list of technologies; it should be an integrated strategy
that marshals resource allocation, R&D, and acquisition processes
toward common ends. The development of such an annex should be overseen
by a Tri-Chair Steering Committee on Emerging Technology, led by the
Deputy Secretary of Defense, the Principal Deputy Director for National
Intelligence, and the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as
our report recommends. In addition, DOD should institutionalize a
Department-wide, enduring review and decision-making process to divest
from legacy systems. Priority threats and challenges should guide
decisions to divest or reallocate funds. The U.S. military needs to
integrate AI across its missions. Our report argues that if it is too
costly or ineffective to equip a platform or system with AI--or to make
it compatible with AI-enabled systems--then DOD should divest from that
platform or system.
Our report also notes that there is an obvious use case for AI
technologies to be leveraged as decision support tools in conducting
this kind of analysis. In particular, AI should aid the Department in
weighing data to compare the risk/reward tradeoffs between new versus
old technologies and operating concepts. Finally, the report argues
that efforts to develop and field next generation capabilities must be
adequately resourced. We recommend that DOD should commit 3.4% of its
annual budget to science and technology, which aligns with
recommendations from the Future of Defense Task Force and the Defense
Science Board. Based on our analysis of DOD spending on AI to date, we
also recommend allocating $8 billion for R&D of core AI annually.
Mr. Moulton. Mr. Work, your report repeatedly points to the
benefits of international AI collaboration, both for the Department of
Defense and U.S. Government writ large. I strongly agree that we should
push for increased collaboration, for all the reasons you listed in the
report and more: we need our technology to integrate with our allies'
technologies, we should be able to leverage the research and
development of our allies, and most importantly we need to set the tone
for ethical and responsible global use of these technologies. At the
same time, the Department has a reasonable instinct to protect its
information and technologies, which sometimes creates a roadblock for
collaboration. How can the Department better balance its
responsibilities to protect certain information and technologies with
this clear need for increased international cooperation and
collaboration?
Secretary Work. Extending U.S. and allied technology advantages
requires establishing an effective protection regime that safeguards
sensitive technologies and preserves the integrity of our research and
commercial environment. It also requires cultivating international
collaboration to accelerate innovation. We cannot do just one or the
other; we must do both. The AI Commission's Final Report argues that
the United States should take a judicious approach to export controls
for emerging technologies. This approach would focus primarily on
discrete chokepoints that the United States and our allies control and
that have substantial downstream effects on technology development.
High-end semiconductor manufacturing equipment, such as EUV and ArF
immersion photolithography equipment, is a clear example of such a
technology. We must also work with our allies to strengthen our
collective ability to protect the integrity of our innovation
environment. The report recommends building a coalition committed to
research integrity, and sidelining those who do not abide by the values
that underpin innovation and global science cooperation. It also
recommends sharpening the focus of CFIUS and research protection
efforts to address the concerning actions of U.S. competitors, while
working to exempt trusted allies and facilitate closer cooperation.
Additionally, the United States must work to strengthen allied
capabilities on technology protection, particularly as we further
integrate our national security innovation bases with our partners in
Europe and Asia. Our collective technology protection efforts will only
be as strong as our weakest link. Finally, the report recommends
collaborating with like-minded allies and partners, through an Emerging
Technology Coalition, in a number of concrete areas that would enable
the U.S. government to increase collaboration that protects innovation
and research. For example, the United States, with allies and partners,
should work to advance R&D on privacy-preserving machine learning or
develop data-sharing best practices. Likewise, we see the Coalition as
a forum for nations to explore alignment on regulatory mechanisms to
protect innovation--such as export controls, intellectual property, and
trade. Collaboration in the context of military and intelligence
activities presents a different set of challenges. In the NATO context,
for example, differential technology adoption and expertise across the
alliance present challenges to AI interoperability, which is
fundamental to joint operations. The Commission has called for DOD to
prioritize its efforts to accelerate adoption of AI and other emerging
technologies at NATO. As this work is done, it is critical that AI
systems are developed and adopted in a responsible manner. That means
that they must comply with the rule of law and ethical principles, and
that systems should be secure, reliable, and trustworthy.
Mr. Moulton. Dr. Louie, this report makes it clear that both the
government and private sector have important roles to play in the
development and deployment of AI. However, balancing those roles is no
easy task. How should the Department of Defense balance its reliance on
private-sector capabilities with its efforts to build internal
capability, both in terms of personnel training and infrastructure?
What elements of AI development and deployment should the Department
work to master internally, and for what elements should the Department
expect to rely on the private sector, both in the near and long term?
Mr. Louie. The Department of Defense (DOD) needs to shift from
concepts of ``reliance'' and ``dependencies'' and to those of
``partnerships'' and ``mutual interests.'' The U.S. industrial
technology base is a significant source of this country's competitive
advantage and innovation. The DOD should not duplicate U.S. private
sector and industrial efforts. Instead, the federal government should
use its buying power as this country's largest purchaser of
capabilities and advanced technologies to speed the development,
adoption, and deployment of cutting-edge technologies internally. This
will drive transformation and deliver new and powerful capabilities to
the DOD. The DOD should increase public-private partnerships with
academia and industry to encourage new R&D efforts to benefit those
institutions and the U.S. national security community mutually. To
achieve the Commission's goal of an AI Ready DOD by 2025, the DOD
requires a core group of people with deep technical expertise, as well
as baseline digital literacy, across much of its workforce to
understand how to use new emerging technologies effectively. Even
military personnel who do not have deep technical expertise must
develop core competencies in building, using, and responsibly teaming
with machines. At a minimum, ensuring these competencies are present
and prevalent throughout the force will help DOD personnel be better
consumers of contractor-developed applications and technologies.
However, it will also ensure our military can develop and update
applications real-time to solve mission-specific challenges where it's
most critical, such as the tactical edge. The way we manage the careers
of our military personnel must change. The most significant hurdle to
developing this technical expertise is the lack of career fields in
software development, data science, and artificial intelligence. We
must incentivize digital literacy like we incentivize joint
warfighting, through a system of critical billets and an emerging
technology certification process. Our acquisition workforce must also
build digital literacy. Acquisition professionals must have sufficient
understanding of digital and emerging technologies in order to
thoughtfully apply the full breadth of acquisition pathways and
contracting approaches. Our report recognizes that there are a number
of acquisition workforce training initiatives underway across the
Department related to digital and emerging technologies. These
initiatives should be coordinated for maximum impact. It is also
critical that acquisition personnel have common access to digital
technology courses available across the enterprise, as well as best
practices and a community of experts that illustrate how different
acquisition and contracting approaches can be used to deliver best of
breed technologies. It is important to note that our recommendations do
not necessarily seek to promote internal development over private
sector-led development. The private sector will continue to be a
critical partner for the Department in the development and deployment
of AI. To better leverage the limited STEM resources and talent
available in the United States and increase the rate of adoption of
critical new technologies, the DOD should purchase and implement
commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) whenever possible, and only invest in
government-only-solutions (GOTS) in areas that COTS cannot address.
Applications already proven in the commercial sector can generate labor
and cost savings, speed administrative actions, and inform decision-
making with superior insights if adopted by the Department. Off-the-
shelf technologies will be particularly useful to optimize core
business and administrative processes, as well as logistics and
sustainment systems. Other applications, including those fielded in the
operational environment, will satisfy unique needs and use-cases of the
Department. Using this approach would help strengthen our industrial
base, focus our government spending and talent on applications that
will give us unique capabilities, and a competitive advantage over our
competitors and adversaries.
There are several steps outlined in our report that are critical to
accelerating AI adoption in DOD. Many of these same steps can lay the
foundation for even more productive collaboration with the private
sector. They include:
Building an integrated technology scouting program that
mobilizes a community of practice from across the DOD, the IC, federal,
private, and international partners to constantly monitor emerging
technology efforts across industry, the USG, adversaries, and allies.
Based on inputs from the technology scouting program,
producing a Technology Annex to the National Defense Strategy that
identifies, prioritizes, and resources emerging technologies and
applications, including AI applications, that solve the most critical
operational challenges and drive new concepts of operations.
Communicating technology priorities to the private sector
by publicly publishing an unclassified complement to the Technology
Annex that identifies specific operational challenges and capability
gaps that the private sector could help solve.
Establishing a common digital ecosystem to provide the
technical foundation for ubiquitous AI development and fielding and
provide access to AI software, trained models, data, and compute, as
well as development environments.
______
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MRS. BICE
Mrs. Bice. We know that investments in STEM education are needed to
maintain our competitive advantage over our nation's adversaries in AI
technology. What additional actions do you think the private sector
could take to aid in growing a skilled workforce that aren't already
being done? Are there incentives that Congress should consider
providing to defense contractors to encourage additional engagement
with students in the STEM fields?
The Commissioners. The United States needs to make significant
investments in STEM education. New investments could help address the
lack of diversity in STEM programs and provide for more equitable
access to STEM education for all Americans. Without accelerating the
growth of a skilled technical workforce, the United States will fall
behind in the global technology competition. Much of the best STEM
talent is in the private sector. Many experts in the private sector
would be willing to contribute to government work if there were more
effective ways to do so. The AI Commission's Final Report suggests
several ways for the government to improve its partnerships with the
private sector; there are actions the private sector can take to
reciprocate as well. Recommended actions include:
Public-private partnerships at the state and local level
for K-12, community college, and university education. Addressing the
shortfall of digital talent in America will require public-private
partnerships at all levels of education. High poverty and low-
performing schools in the K-12 academic system are ripe for
opportunities for partnerships that will benefit American students and
widen accessibility for a quality education. There are also pockets of
private-public partnerships that have helped higher education
institutions respond to the required digital talent needs of local
areas, but more can be done to incentivize cooperation.
Pass a National Defense Education Act II (NDEA II). The
Commission believes the time is right for a second NDEA, one that
mirrors the intent of the first legislation to increase the technology
education of the nation's youth, but with important distinctions. NDEA
II should focus on funding students acquiring digital skills, like
mathematics, computer science, information science, data science, and
statistics. NDEA II should include K-12 education and reskilling
programs that address deficiencies across the spectrum of the American
educational system, purposefully targeting under-resourced school
districts. The Commission also recommends investments in university-
level STEM programs with 25,000 undergraduate, 5,000 graduate, and 500
PhD-level scholarships. Undergraduate scholarships should include
credit hours at community colleges to ensure more Americans have access
to affordable STEM education. Ultimately, the goal of NDEA II is to
widen the digital talent pool by incentivizing programs for
underrepresented Americans.
Direct participation on government advisory boards. There
are several areas where public-private partnerships could allow for
technology leaders and innovators to sit on advisory boards to assist
with curriculum development or program execution, such as with the STEM
Corp and the United States Digital Service Academy (USDSA) proposed by
the Commission. Our STEM Corps recommendation includes a scholarship
program, advisory board, private-sector partnership program, and STEM
Corps member management program. Our USDSA recommendation includes a
Federal Advisory Committee composed of private sector and academic
technology leaders.
Internships. Our report called for a National Reserve
Digital Corps (NRDC) to allow for part-time support for the government
as well as a United States Digital Service Academy (USDSA). Both of
these programs would need private partners that would take in interns
or fellows as part of their programs.
Faculty exchanges and government online courses. There is
a wide array of available online courses and training that already
exists in the private sector. Much of this--and the content developers
who produce it--could be used to augment existing programs and
implement our recommendations. USDSA, for example, could recruit
adjunct faculty, primarily from private-sector technology companies, to
augment its tenure-tracked faculty, and ensure that it keeps relevant
with industry best practices and commercial state-of-the-practice
techniques. Additionally, the private sector could offer to the
government already-developed content at low cost or lowered government
rates.
Short courses for leaders at all levels. Our
recommendations called for the Department of Defense to establish a
short course on emerging technologies for general and flag officers and
senior executive-level civilian leaders. Industry could also offer
other opportunities to take in government leaders at all levels for
short courses where they can be exposed to technologies and software
that they do not have readily available through their existing
government infrastructure. They could be shown new and interesting ways
to think through and solve problems using hardware and software that
they might then take back to their government departments and agencies.
[all]