[Senate Hearing 118-289]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 118-289
RECENT ADVANCES IN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
AND THE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY'S ROLE
IN ENSURING U.S. COMPETITIVENESS AND
SECURITY IN EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON
ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
SEPTEMBER 7, 2023
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Printed for the use of the
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
55-571 WASHINGTON : 2025
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COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES
JOE MANCHIN III, West Virginia, Chairman
RON WYDEN, Oregon JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming
MARIA CANTWELL, Washington JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho
BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont MIKE LEE, Utah
MARTIN HEINRICH, New Mexico STEVE DAINES, Montana
MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska
ANGUS S. KING, JR., Maine JOHN HOEVEN, North Dakota
CATHERINE CORTEZ MASTO, Nevada BILL CASSIDY, Louisiana
MARK KELLY, Arizona CINDY HYDE-SMITH, Mississippi
JOHN W. HICKENLOOPER, Colorado JOSH HAWLEY, Missouri
Renae Black, Staff Director
Sam E. Fowler, Chief Counsel
Levi Patterson, Professional Staff Member
Richard M. Russell, Republican Staff Director
Justin J. Memmott, Republican Chief Counsel
Derek Fisher, Republican Professional Staff Member
C O N T E N T S
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OPENING STATEMENTS
Page
Manchin III, Hon. Joe, Chairman and a U.S. Senator from West
Virginia....................................................... 1
Barrasso, Hon. John, Ranking Member and a U.S. Senator from
Wyoming........................................................ 11
WITNESSES
Turk, Hon. David M., Deputy Secretary, U.S. Department of Energy. 12
Stevens, Dr. Rick L., Associate Laboratory Director, Computing,
Environment, and Life Sciences, Argonne National Laboratory.... 22
Puglisi, Anna B., Senior Fellow, Center for Security and Emerging
Technology, Georgetown University.............................. 32
Wheeler, Andrew, Fellow and Vice President, Hewlett Packard Labs
and HPC & AI Advanced Development, Hewlett Packard Enterprise.. 48
ALPHABETICAL LISTING AND APPENDIX MATERIAL SUBMITTED
Barrasso, Hon. John:
Opening Statement............................................ 11
Federation of American Scientists:
Statement for the Record..................................... 112
King, Jr., Hon. Angus S.:
Screenshot of poem generated in ChatGPT...................... 78
Manchin III, Hon. Joe:
Opening Statement............................................ 1
Research paper entitled ``Can Large Language Models
Democratize Access to Dual-Use Biotechnology?'' by Soice et
al., 2023.................................................. 3
Puglisi, Anna B.:
Opening Statement............................................ 32
Written Testimony............................................ 34
Responses to Questions for the Record........................ 109
Stevens, Dr. Rick L.:
Opening Statement............................................ 22
Written Testimony............................................ 24
Responses to Questions for the Record........................ 105
Turk, Hon. David M.:
Opening Statement............................................ 12
Written Testimony............................................ 15
Responses to Questions for the Record........................ 85
Wheeler, Andrew:
Opening Statement............................................ 48
Written Testimony............................................ 50
RECENT ADVANCES IN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND THE DEPARTMENT OF
ENERGY'S ROLE IN ENSURING U.S. COMPETITIVENESS AND SECURITY IN EMERGING
TECHNOLOGIES
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THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 2023
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:03 a.m. in
Room SD-366, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Joe Manchin
III, Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOE MANCHIN III,
U.S. SENATOR FROM WEST VIRGINIA
The Chairman. Our hearing today is kicking off Senate
discussions for the fall on a very timely topic--the recent
advances in artificial intelligence and the Department of
Energy's role in ensuring our continued competitiveness and
security in emerging technologies. Over the past few years, six
national labs with world-leading capability have been working
to understand the challenges around AI and related issues.
Those labs are Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois,
Lawrence Livermore and Lawrence Berkeley National Labs in
California, Los Alamos and Sandia National Labs in New Mexico,
and Oak Ridge National Lab in Tennessee. The labs' work is
bringing together both fundamental science and national
security missions. This hearing will examine their findings.
This hearing will also discuss the $1.8 billion Exascale
Computing Project that the Committee authorized. If we want to
invest in AI in a cost-effective way, we must build on these
existing programs and avoid wasting resources and duplication.
Most people think about the Department of Energy for its
work advancing energy technologies, like nuclear reactors,
energy efficiency, carbon capture, and hydrogen. But DOE does
more than just energy. The Department also is the largest
supporter of physical scientific research in the Federal
Government, conducting research and developing technologies
across a range of fields, from quantum computing to vaccine
development to astrophysics. Last Congress, we spent a lot of
time examining DOE's critical role in broad, scientific
research in the context of the Endless Frontier Act, which
ultimately became law as the CHIPS and Science Act. DOE's
scientific work jump-starts private-sector innovation, it
strengthens our economy, and is central to our national
security. DOE research ensures the U.S. can anticipate, detect,
assess, and mitigate emerging technology threats related to
advanced computing, biotechnologies, nuclear security, and much
more.
Artificial intelligence stands out across DOE's vast
mission. It has the potential to revolutionize scientific
discovery, technology deployment, and national security. In
fact, AI is already changing the world at a remarkable pace. We
are seeing it deployed in battlefields across the world.
Ukraine has successfully used AI-enabled drone swarms against
Russian forces. Also, AI helped us fight COVID-19. DOE's Oak
Ridge National Laboratory has used its artificial intelligence
and computing resources to model proteins in the coronavirus to
help develop the vaccine. But make no mistake, artificial
intelligence also presents many risks. Earlier this year, a
class of non-scientific students at MIT was tasked with
investigating whether AI chatbots could be prompted to assist
non-experts in causing a pandemic. In just one hour--in just
one hour--the chatbots suggested four potential pandemic
pathogens, explained how they can be generated from synthetic
DNA using reverse genetics, supplied the names of the DNA
synthesis companies unlikely to screen orders, identified
detailed protocols and how to troubleshoot them, and
recommended that anyone lacking the skills to perform reverse
genetics engage a core facility or contract research
organization. That comes from a research paper titled, ``Can
Large Language Models Democratize Access to Dual-Use
Biotechnology?'' which I ask unanimous consent to enter into
the record.
Senator Barrasso. Without objection.
The Chairman. Without objection.
[The paper referred to follows:]
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The Chairman. Scientific and engineering expertise has long
been a barrier that protects us from rogue actors. Until now,
the common person has not had access to the resources or the
know-how to launch these high-tech threats on human society.
Irresponsible availability of AI technologies risks eliminating
much of the expertise required to develop a weapon, disease, or
cyberattack, thereby eroding defenses we had in the past. AI is
not a new issue for the Committee or the Department of Energy.
Since the 1960s, DOE has been a key player in investments in AI
and automated reasoning. As we all know well, the Department
has 17 national labs and 34 user facilities that are crown
jewels of America's R&D network. DOE's national laboratory
system houses a workforce of over 70,000 scientists, engineers,
researchers, and support personnel with world-leading
scientific expertise, whose mission is to serve the American
people. Each of these labs plays a significant role in the
future of AI.
As I mentioned earlier, DOE is also the largest funder of
the physical sciences and manages more scientific data than any
other agency in the U.S. As a result, the Department has
computing resources, expertise, and experience in managing
large volumes of data that give the Department their natural
leadership on artificial intelligence. When federal agencies
have an AI problem, they look to the DOE and its labs for help.
Over the past decade, the Department has developed thousands--
and I say thousands--of AI applications. For example, the
National Energy Technology Lab in Morgantown, West Virginia--my
home area--supports the Department of the Interior in using
artificial intelligence to identify orphan oil and gas wells.
For the orphan well program, AI serves resources by analyzing
old land survey maps, drilling permits, historical images,
production records, and eyewitness accounts to find well sites.
During the 2023 R&D awards, which I am told is referred to
as the ``Oscars of Innovation,'' Dr. Rick Stevens, of Argonne
National Lab, who is one of our witnesses today, was recognized
for his work using AI to accelerate the discovery of new cancer
therapies and treatments that are highly personalized for
individual patients. And our Committee has recently played an
important role in advancing DOE's AI work. Recognizing that the
United States must not fall behind in the supercomputing race,
we authorized the Exascale Computing Project at the Department
of Energy in the 115th Congress. In May of last year, the
Frontier supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in
Tennessee passed exascale--the ability to perform one billion--
billion--calculations per second--that's a lot--making this the
fastest supercomputer in the world. Before we authorized the
Exascale Computing Project, China had the fastest computers.
Now, the U.S. has regained the lead. This supercomputer at Oak
Ridge is already using AI to model the behavior of human cells
to develop better treatments for Alzheimer's, opioid addiction,
and cancer.
But the global AI race is just beginning. AI has the
potential to add trillions of dollars into the world economy
each year. Governments and companies around the world are
competing fiercely in the new market. In particular, America
must accelerate our efforts to compete and defend against China
on AI. It is estimated that the annual Chinese AI investments
will reach over $26 billion by 2026, which dwarfs the U.S.
government's current spending of about $3.3 billion per year.
Between 2015 and 2021, Chinese AI companies raised $110
billion, including $40.2 billion from U.S. investors, which I
cannot even believe, in 251 AI companies. In 2017, China
released their ``New Generation of AI Development Plan,'' which
includes R&D and infrastructure targets. The U.S. currently
does not have a strategic AI plan like this. In addition to
government spending, China's workforce advantage is
significant. It has twice as many STEM Ph.D.s and twice as many
STEM master's degree holders than the U.S. China has created
artificial intelligence Ph.D. programs in every one of their
top universities.
In regards to the Exascale Computing Project this Committee
championed, the Chinese government could be set to operate as
many as ten--as many as ten--exascale supercomputers by 2025.
Xi Jinping himself has pointed to our national lab network,
calling them ``indispensable momentum for the development and
innovation of science and technology.'' Soon, China may have
their very own lab network. Just last week, a company named
Baidu released ``Ernie Bot,'' which is a Chinese Communist
Party-approved AI language model comparable to ``ChatGPT,'' an
app developed in the U.S., which we have all heard a lot about.
``Ernie Bot'' is the most downloaded app in all of Asia and is
expected to continue to grow.
It is clear to me that DOE needs to do more strategic
planning around AI so that Americans have confidence that we
are leveraging our key resources, such as our national labs, to
their fullest potential. We should encourage other agencies to
use DOE's AI resources and promote private-sector partnerships
with the Department and the national labs to develop safe
commercial applications of AI. We must also understand what
additional investments are needed to spur U.S. leadership in
artificial intelligence. Congress should focus on strengthening
and expanding our impressive existing programs rather than
creating duplicate new programs at other agencies. We should
also ensure DOE and the national labs are able to responsibly
recruit leading AI experts, both from our country and globally.
Much of America's AI expertise comes from abroad. Immigrants
founded or co-founded nearly half of top startups in the U.S.,
and international students earn 60 percent of our computer
science doctorates.
All at the same time, we must be absolutely sure that the
Department's AI work includes strong research security
requirements. We will not outcompete China in AI if they are
able to just steal the technology funded by our taxpayers'
dollars. The CHIPS and Science Act that passed last Congress
featured research security improvements that are now law and
currently being implemented by the Department. However, foreign
espionage is an evolving threat, and we must remain vigilant
and clear-eyed in this threat. The United States must remain at
the forefront of new emerging technologies, and the Department
of Energy is a central component of that effort.
I am looking forward to hearing our witnesses' perspectives
on specific steps our Committee and the Department could take
to ensure America is advancing AI in a competitive, responsible
manner.
With that, I will turn to my friend, Senator Barrasso, for
his opening remarks.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN BARRASSO,
U.S. SENATOR FROM WYOMING
Senator Barrasso. Well, thanks so much, Mr. Chairman, and I
appreciate your opening remarks because artificial intelligence
is rapidly transforming the world. It is already impacting our
daily lives.
Artificial intelligence plays an important role in the
energy sector. In mining, AI can reduce equipment downtime.
Advanced algorithms help miners locate mineral-rich deposits
for more efficient exploration. Real-time analytics strengthen
worker safety programs by predicting potential hazards.
Artificial intelligence helps pinpoint oil and gas reserves.
Predictive models harness data to streamline operations and
reduce costs. AI-enhanced sensors also reinforce pipeline
safety and efficiency. So artificial intelligence has great
promise to expand our economy and to strengthen our national
security.
It also raises, Mr. Chairman, as you point out, some well-
documented concerns. A recent study at the University of East
Anglia highlighted a significant and systemic left-wing bias in
the ChatGPT platform. In the United States, it revealed a clear
bias in favor of Democrats. The same program favored the Labor
Party in the United Kingdom and the Workers' Party in Brazil.
We can't let political bias infiltrate development of AI. This
is particularly true when taxpayer dollars are helping fund the
technology's development.
Innovation in emerging technologies like artificial
intelligence can be a source of great strength. It can be a key
advantage in our geopolitical competition, as you point out,
Mr. Chairman, with China and with Russia. It can also create a
national security risk if the technologies are not properly
protected. The Department of Energy has an important role in
artificial intelligence research. The Department maintains the
world's most advanced computing systems. Its 17 national labs
have significant experience developing our nation's most
sensitive technologies.
For this reason, the People's Republic of China is watching
nearly every move that is made at our national labs. A recent
report revealed that since 1987, the Chinese Communist Party
has targeted over 160 Chinese researchers working at our
premier nuclear weapons lab. Upon returning to China, these
researchers help to advance key military technologies using
knowledge financed by American taxpayers. In July of this year,
senior FBI officials warned that China is targeting U.S.
businesses, universities, and government research facilities.
China is trying to get their hands on cutting-edge American
research and technology. As of 2021, over 4,000 non-U.S.
resident Chinese nationals still work at our nation's labs--at
the national labs. Many of these foreign nationals strive to
further scientific innovation and do want to collaborate in
good faith. They find themselves beholden to an authoritarian
regime at home, and the Chinese Communist Party is relentless.
Some of these Chinese nationals will see no choice but to
support the Chinese Communists through theft of research and
technology. Their families back in China may suffer harsh
consequences if they do not comply with their government's
demands.
China's sustained interest in our intellectual property is
a stark reminder of the intense global competition surrounding
artificial intelligence. This competition may drive
advancements in the field. We can't overlook the threat to our
economic and national security posed by the Chinese government.
The Department of Energy and our national labs must take the
China threat more seriously. We can't let our technology fall
into the hands of those in Beijing.
I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today on what
additional steps research agencies and the laboratories and the
universities that they fund must take to prevent this theft of
American technology.
Mr. Chairman, thanks for calling this important hearing.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator.
I would like to first of all thank the witnesses for being
here today and I appreciate very much you all coming and making
the effort.
First of all, we are going to have David Turk, Deputy
Secretary of Energy.
We have Dr. Rick Stevens, who I mentioned before, and thank
you for the great work and being recognized for that, Associate
Laboratory Director of Argonne National Laboratory.
Ms. Anna Puglisi, Senior Fellow, Georgetown University
Center for Security and Emerging Technology.
And Mr. Andrew Wheeler, Vice President and Fellow at
Hewlett Packard Enterprise.
And again, thank you all.
I will turn to Deputy Secretary Turk. We are going to begin
with your opening remarks.
STATEMENT OF HON. DAVID M. TURK,
DEPUTY SECRETARY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
Mr. Turk. Chairman Manchin, Ranking Member Barrasso,
distinguished members of the Committee, thank you for the
opportunity on behalf of the Department of Energy to talk about
our activities in and our vision for artificial intelligence.
Let me begin, appropriately so, by thanking this Committee for
years and years of strong, sustained support that has led to
the DOE becoming an AI powerhouse. And Chairman, you laid out
much of that in your own opening statement. With your
leadership, we have designed, developed, and currently operate
four of the top ten fastest openly benchmarked supercomputers
in the world, including, as the Chairman mentioned, the world's
fastest--Frontier--at Oak Ridge National Lab.
Through the Exascale Computing Project, DOE is developing
the world's first capable exascale software ecosystem that is
helping to drive breakthroughs--AI breakthroughs--in critical
areas as varied as materials science, cancer research,
earthquake risk assessment, energy production and storage,
computational weapons applications, and I could go on and on.
Across a network of 34 national user facilities around our
country, DOE generates tremendous volumes of high-quality data,
literally the fuel that can lead to more AI breakthroughs. And
most importantly, DOE's national laboratory system houses a
workforce of over 70,000 scientists, engineers, researchers,
and support personnel with world-leading expertise.
It is a particular pleasure to be joined on this panel by
Professor Rick Stevens, who is one of those top experts, as you
mentioned, Chairman, in your opening statement. But as proud as
we all should be about this robust AI foundation at DOE, now is
the time to take these capabilities to the next level. Advances
in AI are enabling enormous progress and breakthroughs that can
help address key challenges of our time. And we need to double
down on that technical capability--the computers, the software,
the data, and most importantly, the researchers, to make sure
that we have those breakthroughs here in the U.S., and our
private sector can benefit from that as well.
Governments around the world are investing in AI
capabilities as never before. Chinese investments are expected
to reach, as the Chairman said, over $26 billion by 2026. We
simply must be bolder and move faster or risk falling behind.
AI also lowers the bar for bad actors to do even worse things
and to do those worse things easier. AI systems can pose risks
to individual safety, privacy, and civil liberties, risks to
society for information manipulation, as the Ranking Member
stated, bias and discrimination, social engineering, and market
manipulation, biothreats, nuclear threats, chemical threats--
all made easier by AI, potentially. An industry alone cannot be
fully aware of the relevant risks and threats because much of
that information, rightfully so, falls within the purview of
our intelligence community and our national security
enterprise.
DOE can play an incredibly important role here, including
developing methods for assessing and red teaming AI models to
identify and mitigate the risks presented by these cutting-edge
AI systems that are only developing, and improving incredibly
quickly over weeks and months ahead. Over the past five years,
we have worked with stakeholders across the AI ecosystem to
identify new and rapidly emerging opportunities and challenges
presented by AI, and to identify very specifically how unique
DOE capabilities--the strong foundation, again, thanks to this
Committee--how we can drive progress for AI going forward from
the Department of Energy side of things. This culminated in the
May 2023 release of a report called ``AI for Science, Energy,
and Security.'' This vision and blueprint align precisely with
the pressing need for scientific grounding in areas such as
bias, transparency, security, validation, and the impact of AI
on jobs. We have translated this feedback into a specific
proposal for your consideration called ``The Frontiers in
Artificial Intelligence for Science, Security, and
Technology,'' or FASST, by acronym. This is exactly, Chairman,
as you said, a strategic vision, a strategic plan for the DOE
nested within a broader strategic vision for the U.S. and the
U.S. Government.
Mr. Ranking Member, you rightfully point out that there are
also research security issues and challenges we need to take
head-on and be eyes-wide-open and improving our systems on a
regular basis. I want to thank our fellow panelist, Ms.
Puglisi, for her testimony, for all her work--excellent
testimony that we can improve on even further on the Department
of Energy side, including our science and technology risk
matrix, which I would be happy to get into in the question-and-
answer session. We look very forward to further discussing the
FASST proposal, everything else we are doing, and updating it
based on this Committee's continued guidance and leadership.
There is no doubt that with AI we are now on the cusp of our
next grand challenge here in the United States. Working within
and outside the government, DOE stands ready to step up to this
moment, to play our role in fully engaging in this grand
challenge by utilizing our unique computing capacity,
comprehensive, well-curated datasets, our algorithms,
relationships with industry, and again, most importantly, our
skilled, leading scientific workforce. All of us at the
Department of Energy and our national labs very much look
forward to working with this Committee to live up to this
moment.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Turk follows:]
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The Chairman. Thank you, Deputy Secretary Turk.
And now we are going to go to Dr. Stevens.
STATEMENT OF DR. RICK L. STEVENS, ASSOCIATE LABORATORY
DIRECTOR, COMPUTING, ENVIRONMENT, AND LIFE SCIENCES, ARGONNE
NATIONAL LABORATORY
Dr. Stevens. Thank you, Chairman Manchin, Ranking Member
Barrasso, and members of the Committee for this opportunity to
participate in today's discussion about national labs and AI. I
have worked on advanced computing for over 30 years at Argonne
and at the University of Chicago, and for much of that time, I
have been driven by this idea that we need to build
intelligence into future computing. And over the last four
years, I had the fortune to work with my colleagues at all the
labs--all 17 labs, over 30 universities, and dozens of
companies to run a series of town hall meetings--seven town
hall meetings over four years--that involved over 1,300
researchers. And at these meetings, we challenged the community
to think broadly about how advanced AI systems, going beyond
what we can do today, could be developed and applied in DOE
mission spaces to accelerate scientific research, accelerate
development of energy technologies, and improve national
security-related work. And what I am going to tell you about
right now is a little bit of those outcomes of that report.
The consensus is that there is an enormous opportunity here
to use AI to accelerate discovery both in basic science,
accelerate the application of that in energy technologies, and
to improve how we actually conduct all of our work in national
security. Some of these applications could range from new
technologies for better batteries that, say, require less rare-
earth minerals, which would improve global security in and of
itself, to new types of polymers that could be ideal for each
application but could be recycled indefinitely without losing
performance. We don't know how to do that today, but we think
AI could help us with that. We believe AI could be coupled with
robotics to automate much of experimental science, improving
throughput by orders of magnitude. In fact, it is so
compelling, that idea that some of my colleagues have formed,
this concept of AI-driven science factories, or some people
call it self-driving laboratories, as a way that we will
actually accelerate work in drug development for cancer or new
materials for semiconductors.
AI can also address key challenges in software development.
DOE manages over billions of lines of code, and we do not have
enough developers, enough senior software developers to
maintain that code and deport that code to new machines. We
know AI can help us with that problem. In fact, AI systems
appropriately trained and tuned could help us design not only
software, but hardware for next-generation systems and help us
build systems that could save a huge amount of energy. AI
systems are also being used to explore ways to control complex
systems, like fusion reactors. And we think that same idea
could be applied to control future power grids where we have a
diversity of sources and changes in demand. AI can also be used
to accelerate scientific simulations by replacing traditional
numerical methods with new AI-driven methods in achieving
speedups of factors of 100 or more across many applications,
from weather prediction, to electronic structure computation
that is used on over 30 percent of DOE computers.
And finally, the biggest opportunity is probably this idea
of foundation models--the underlying technology behind things
like ChatGPT, but applying that to science. We are discovering
that those types of technologies are incredibly versatile for
doing scientific problems. They have been trained on millions
of science papers--vastly more knowledge than individual
scientists would ever absorb in their lifetime, and can be used
to integrate and synthesize knowledge, suggest new lines of
attack on open problems and so forth. In short, and as a
surprise to many, current foundation models have demonstrated
an unusual utility in science maybe a decade earlier than we
thought. And that is one of the dramatic opportunities and
challenges because these models can directly affect scientific
productivity today, and we do not have a strategy across the
Department for aggressively using this. It is a big, big
opportunity and also a challenge.
So AI, in all of its forms, is rapidly becoming the most
important tool in the scientific and technical toolbox. And as
a result of these workshops and the progress over the last five
years, I believe it is imperative that the U.S. lead the world
in the development of advanced AI systems for scientific and
national security applications. I believe DOE is the only
agency that can do this, that has all the resources under one
roof. Of course, it's going to be a partnership with private
industry to do this, and with our academic colleagues. I
believe we should commit over the next decade to building the
most powerful advanced AI capability for science, energy, and
national security. Some might call it an artificial general
intelligence for science, or perhaps a super-intelligence for
science. It could have many names, but the goal is to go
dramatically beyond where we are today in a secure fashion and
a reliable fashion.
Whoever leads the world in AI for science will lead the
world in scientific discovery and have a head start in the
translation of those discoveries into products that expand our
economy and address modern needs. And in doing that, we will
secure what I call the innovation frontier by AI. Whoever leads
the world in the development of AI for energy will lead the
world in developing and deploying next-generation energy
technologies, such as modular reactors that can be safe and
deployed anywhere at a moment's notice, or super-efficient
combustion systems to take maximum advantage of our resources,
and scalable approaches to carbon sequestration, which we
desperately need, and better and more effective strategies for
electrification of the economy. And by doing that, we will
secure the energy and climate frontier. And finally, whoever
leads the world in understanding and mitigating the risks of AI
and the use of AI to improve national and global security will
determine the landscape in which we and our allies will live
and work in the future, securing our lifestyles and our
prosperity.
Thank you for your time, and I really look forward to the
questions.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Stevens follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
The Chairman. Thank you, Dr. Stevens.
And now we will have Ms. Puglisi.
STATEMENT OF ANNA B. PUGLISI, SENIOR FELLOW, CENTER FOR
SECURITY AND EMERGING TECHNOLOGY, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY
Ms. Puglisi. Thank you Chairman Manchin, Ranking Member
Barrasso, distinguished members of the Committee and staff, and
thank you for the opportunity to participate in today's
hearing. It is an honor to be here alongside the esteemed
experts on this panel. I am currently the senior fellow at the
Center for Security and Emerging Technology at Georgetown
University. I previously served as the National
Counterintelligence Officer for East Asia and have studied
China's S&T development and tech acquisition strategy across my
career. My testimony today will first address why China targets
the DOE labs, provide a brief overview of China's S&T system,
and finally discuss potential mitigation strategies. I will
also offer lessons learned, which include that this is not a
DOE problem, but a U.S.-wide problem, because China's system is
not the same as ours.
China takes a holistic approach to developing technology,
blurring the lines between public, private, civilian, and
military. Our policies and mitigation strategies need to
reflect this reality. Beijing, in many ways, understands our
societal tensions, and its statecraft is directed at them,
exploiting identity politics by promoting any changes in U.S.
policy as ethnic profiling. It is because of this last point
that I want to acknowledge how difficult and challenging these
issues can be. My own grandparents were immigrants who came to
this country with little formal education and worked menial
jobs. My presence here today is a testament to the American
dream. There is no room for xenophobia or ethnic profiling in
the U.S. It goes against everything we stand for as a nation.
And precisely because of these values, we must move forward to
find principled ways to mitigate the policies of a nation-state
that is ever more authoritarian and seeks to undermine the
global norms of science.
And the importance of science is why China targets the DOE
labs. Emerging technologies, as we have heard, such as AI,
biotechnology, new materials, and green tech are increasingly
at the center of global competition. The DOE labs, because of
their mission, are in the crosshairs. While many are familiar
with DOE's mission in regards to stewarding our nuclear
deterrent, it also plays an essential role in emerging
technologies and research, and is essentially a window into the
priorities of the U.S. Government. And I have to say, DOE is
really an underappreciated resource. While China is not the
only country that targets U.S. technology and the DOE complex,
China's efforts are complex and multi-faceted and part of a
state-sponsored strategy to save time, money, and advance its
strategic goals, specifically in these emerging technology
areas. My written testimony goes into more detail on the
policies, programs, and infrastructure that support these
development efforts. China's legal system also complicates
collaborations with the DOE complex because its laws compel its
citizens to share information and data with Chinese entities if
asked, regardless of the restrictions placed on that data, and
more importantly, who owns it. I have also provided these in my
written testimony.
Moving forward, we need to consider the following: we need
to have policies for the China we have, not the China we want.
Most policy measures to date have been tactical and not
designed to counter an entire system that is structurally
different than our own. It is essential that the United States
and other liberal democracies invest in the future. We have
heard about the great promise of these technologies, but we
must build research security into those funding programs from
the start. Existing policies and laws are insufficient to
address the level of influence that the CCP exerts in our
society, especially in academia and research. Increased
reporting requirements for foreign money in our academic and
research institutes and clear reporting requirements and rules
on participation in foreign talent programs are a good start.
We also have to ensure true reciprocity in our collaborations.
For too long, we have looked the other way when China has not
followed through on the details of the S&T agreements. There
have been no repercussions for that, for not sharing data,
providing access to its facilities, and obfuscating the true
affiliations of its scientists. However, I want to caution--
extreme policy reactions, such as closing our eyes and doing
nothing, or closing our doors, only really benefit China--the
latter by discrediting en masse all efforts to address the
problem and by depriving ourselves of the great contributions
of foreign-born scientists.
In conclusion, what will also make this difficult is that
the reality that China is presenting is inconvenient in the
short term. This includes companies looking for short-term
profits, academics that benefit personally from funding for
their laboratories, and former government officials who cash in
as lobbyists for China's state-owned or state-supported
companies. I want to thank the Committee again for continuing
to discuss this issue. These are hard conversations that we as
a nation must have if we want to protect and promote U.S.
competitiveness, future developments, and our values. Thank you
very much.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Puglisi follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
The Chairman. Thank you.
And now we will have Mr. Wheeler.
STATEMENT OF ANDREW WHEELER, FELLOW AND VICE PRESIDENT, HEWLETT
PACKARD LABS AND HPC AND AI ADVANCED DEVELOPMENT, HEWLETT
PACKARD ENTERPRISE
Mr. Wheeler. Chairman Manchin, Ranking Member Barrasso, and
distinguished members of the Committee, thank you for the
opportunity to testify today and thank you for this Committee's
support for the Exascale Computing Initiative. My name is
Andrew Wheeler and I lead advanced development in high
performance computing and artificial intelligence and serve as
the Director of Hewlett Packard Labs, the central applied
research group for Hewlett Packard Enterprise. While we trace
our roots back to the original Hewlett-Packard Company, as many
of you know, Hewlett Packard Enterprise was formed as a new
publicly traded company in November 2015. At HPE, we
fundamentally believe that AI will have as significant an
impact on our lives as any technology to date. Training the
largest AI models is a supercomputing problem, and at HPE, we
build the world's best supercomputers. With our partners at the
Department of Energy, we co-design and co-build supercomputers
that target complex scientific, engineering, and data-intensive
workloads. These include systems at Sandia and Los Alamos
National Laboratories in New Mexico, the National Renewable
Energy Laboratory in Colorado, and the National Energy
Technology Laboratory in Morgantown, West Virginia.
Our national investments in supercomputing have far-
reaching benefits across the Federal Government. For example,
our innovations in computing power and density that we provide
to the DOE are also being used across the Department of
Defense, in the intelligence community, at the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration to forecast weather, and at the
National Science Foundation centers. In fact, during the early
stages of the COVID-19 outbreak, the national labs, including
Argonne and Lawrence Livermore, used their supercomputers to
accelerate a path to treatment to combat the disease. Using
detailed digital simulations to analyze a vast set of drug
candidates, researchers at Lawrence Livermore narrowed down the
number of potential antibody candidates from an initial set of
100 duodecillion--that is a one with 40 zeros after it--to just
20. The lab's researchers accomplished this in weeks compared
to the years it would take using other approaches.
In 2016, HPE was proud to be chosen as a key partner in the
DOE's Exascale Computing Initiative, which was designed to
accelerate the research, development, acquisition, and
deployment of new technologies to deliver exascale computing
and to usher in a new era of supercomputing speed and
capabilities. Then, in May 2022, HPE, as part of a public-
private partnership with Oak Ridge, achieved exascale computing
with a computer that is more powerful than the world's next
four fastest systems combined. To put exascale into context,
the human brain can perform about one simple mathematical
operation per second. An exascale computer can do at least one
quintillion, which is one billion times a billion calculations
in the same amount of time. The success of the Exascale
Computing Initiative restored the U.S. position as having the
world's most powerful computer and also marked the creation of
the world's largest AI system, which will soon be joined by
systems installed at Argonne and Lawrence Livermore. The
Exascale Computing Initiative was the model of success.
Congress made the right investments. Our national labs
challenged America's technology industry, and at HPE, we rose
to the challenge.
In conclusion, while the United States has regained its
rightful role as the world leader in supercomputing, now is not
the time to rest on our laurels. The DOE national labs are
producing results that researchers could only have dreamed of
just a few years ago. Continued investment in this successful
partnership is in our national, economic, and security
interests, and HP looks forward to working with the U.S.
Government to continue our global leadership.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Wheeler follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
The Chairman. Thank you.
Now, I will begin with our questioning. My first question
will go to Secretary Turk and Dr. Stevens and Mr. Wheeler. In
my testimony, I mention a study about how AI was used to
provide clear and detailed steps to create a pandemic or
bioweapon. The DOE and the labs are uniquely positioned to do
extensive work in detecting and mitigating emerging
technological threats related to an array of biotechnologies
and nuclear security. So Mr. Turk and Dr. Stevens, what can the
Department and the labs do to address these safety and security
concerns?
Mr. Turk. Well, thanks for the question. You are right to
raise this as an issue. The MIT study that you referenced and
put into the record is one of those that is a real eye opener.
It should be, especially for those who don't deal with these
issues on a daily basis. So we have a real challenge here. As
Professor Stevens and others have pointed out, AI can do a lot
of good, but it can do a lot of harm here, right? It allows
actors who are not as sophisticated scientifically or
technologically to do certain things that could have huge, huge
harm. So from the DOE side, I think we have some ability to be
incredibly helpful working with others--Department of Defense,
HHS, others as well. We have to remember that our national labs
don't just work for the Department of Energy, they work for all
the other agencies, and a lot of other agencies already have a
lot of programs, including in the biodefense and biotech area.
We also, at the Department of Energy, know how to deal with
classified information. We have our own intelligence branch.
And that is incredibly important here as well. So we are not
just relying on what is in the open record, but we have the
best of what is going on from a scientific and certainly from
an intel perspective.
The Chairman. Let me give you a quick overview of what I am
trying to get to--I look back and we all remember when the
internet was coming on board and it was born out of the labs.
And then, by the 1990s--early 1990s--we had to do something. We
created Section 230, thinking we would let it develop and be
all it could be. We look back, and it's even more than what we
thought it could be, and it has been used very effectively to
help economies and help people all over the world. But it has
been used very detrimentally too. So we are trying to not re-
create that same environment here with AI. That is what we are
looking at.
So what you saw, just with what the MIT students could do
in one hour, it is alarming. And I have advised some of my
colleagues about this. What can you do to stop something like
that, and what kind of guardrails are needed?
Dr. Stevens, do you want to say something on that?
Mr. Turk. I was just going to say this is exactly why we
need to invest in these capabilities, right? I mean, we need to
be ahead of the curve.
The Chairman. Right.
Mr. Turk. And Professor Stevens can certainly get into that
more.
Dr. Stevens. Let me just try to outline quickly how we
would approach that problem. So, of course, DOE is working with
NIST on a thing called the AI Risk Management Framework, which
is largely currently envisioned as a process that uses humans
to evaluate the trustworthiness and the alignment--that is,
whether a model does something that you would like it to do or
something that you don't want it to do. I think the key thing
here--there are actually two key problems that we have to
solve. One is, we have to have the ability to assess the risks
in current models at scale. There are over 100 large language
models in circulation in China. There are more than a thousand
in circulation in the U.S. A manual process for evaluating that
is not going to scale. So we are going to have to build
capabilities using the kind of supercomputers we have and even
additional AI systems to assess other AI systems, and we can
say this model is safe. It does not know how to build a
pandemic or it won't help students do something risky. That is
one thing we have to do.
The second thing we have to do is, we have to understand
the fundamental issue of alignment--what is called alignment--
that is, building these models that align with human values and
are reliable in aligning with human values. And that is a
fundamental research task. It's not something where we can just
snap our fingers and say we know how to do it. We don't know
how to do it. Companies don't know how to do it, labs don't
know how to do it, universities don't know how to do it. That
is one of the goals that we would have to have in a research
program like this. So we need scale, the ability to assess and
evaluate risk in current models and future models, and we need
fundamental R&D on alignment and AI safety.
The Chairman. It's growing so quickly and expanding--when
we heard about it, and coming at it, you know, from our
standpoint, to where we are today and to have a class study,
and these were non-scientist students.
Dr. Stevens. Yes.
The Chairman. To be able to get this. All right, how can we
put that back--the cat back in the box?
Dr. Stevens. I don't think we can put it back in the box. I
think we are going to be--we have to get smarter about how we
manage the risks associated with advanced AI systems, and using
the term that people are using quite a lot about being eyes-
wide-open. There is no putting Pandora back in the box, right?
Every person within the next few years is going to have a very
powerful AI assistant in their pocket to do whatever it is that
they can get that assistant to help them to do. Hopefully, most
of that will be positive advances for society and so on. Some
of that will be negative. We have to be able to understand how
to reduce that negative element, detect it when it happens, and
mitigate it either through laws or through other means--
technical means.
The Chairman. Yes.
Dr. Stevens. Before something dramatically bad happens. And
I think that needs to be part of the technical agenda for the
labs, and quite frankly, across the Federal Government.
The Chairman. I am going to take the liberty of having
seven-minute rounds, so if you want to set that for seven
minutes. Ms. Puglisi, did you want to speak on this at all? Do
you have any comments?
Ms. Puglisi. Sure. I think that is also important, as we
look at AI as a tool of discovery, and in some ways you could
say that the study that the classroom did was a discovery.
There are a lot of steps though that need to happen from the
time you go from a sequence into something that can really have
a large-scale damage that is talked about. And since one of the
things that we are actually taking a closer look at is--having
the sequence is one thing, but then what are those follow-on
steps? And so that is something that there is still a lot of--
what chemistry, what biology has to go on in between that?
The Chairman. I guess in a nutshell, is it too late to put
any guardrails on? Have we missed it?
Mr. Wheeler. Not entirely. I think there are many layers to
this.
The Chairman. They are getting close.
Mr. Wheeler. I think there is both a policy aspect to this
as well as, you know, kind of a research component. But as an
example, on the policy side, like our own company, right, we
spent over a year and a half developing what we call our AI
ethics principles. And this is all about, you know, getting our
thousands of engineers and users, you know, go through training
around, okay, what does it mean to use AI in our product
developments? You know, how are we going to deploy solutions
that harness AI? And now, that can't solve every problem
because, as you mentioned, there are bad actors that maybe
wouldn't follow that same line of reasoning. And that's where I
think the research investment comes into play. There is a broad
field of study around this trustworthy AI, which ultimately can
provide some of those guardrails you are asking about, but we
are still really in the early days of some of that and
deploying some of those solutions and there is a lot of work
that is left.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Senator Barrasso.
Senator Barrasso. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Puglisi, just a couple things. You are an expert on
Chinese science and technology policy. You very well outlined
us in your opening statement the threats that China poses to
government-funded research as well as private-sector
development. So we have more than 4,000 Chinese nationals
working in the Department of Energy labs. Are these employees
vulnerable to the Chinese Communist Party--their talent
recruitment programs? How does that work?
Ms. Puglisi. Right, thank you.
The talent recruitment programs really do pose quite a
challenge based on the principles that a lot of these
individuals, when they sign these contracts, often obfuscate
their participation. But I think, as I mentioned in my opening
statement, it's really important as we go forward that we
acknowledge the policies and programs that China has put in
place and really focus on how our system and their system is
different. And that is why it's important to talk about the
human rights issues and the kinds of pressure that the Chinese
government can bring to bear on individuals, especially, as you
had mentioned in your opening statement, whose families are
still in China.
Now, I think it is a really delicate balance. And so some
of these reporting programs, and also just following up on
different affiliations and thinking through the risk matrix is
one of those tools that can be very useful because all resource
does not have the same amount of risk, right? And so, it's
important to not have a one-size-fits-all approach to this. But
it also highlights the importance of really investing in
homegrown talent as well.
Thank you.
Senator Barrasso. So Mr. Turk, more than a year ago, I
wrote to the Department regarding the persistent threat of the
Chinese foreign nationals doing research on sensitive
technology at our labs. A copy of the letter (holds up copy).
I brought to the attention that 162 Chinese nationals
actually stole sensitive research material from Los Alamos and
the lab. Your Department, again, answered the letter, but
really didn't answer my question. So let me ask the question to
you: Does the benefit of the work of the Chinese foreign
nationals within our labs outweigh the documented risks to both
our research and our national security?
Mr. Turk. Let me first thank you for all your focus on this
issue. Thanks to Miss Puglisi and others who have focused their
careers here. And I thought that Miss Puglisi's testimony, as I
said in my opening, was incredibly useful, just eyes-wide-open,
right? Here is the threat and here is what we face and how do
we deal with it and get the balance right. So three things,
maybe just to point out, and happy to get into this in any
detail. One, we do have specific restrictions. So you can't
work at a DOE lab if you have done a talent recruitment
program. And to make sure that we have that prohibition and
those restrictions in place and trying to really think about
not just what is called a talent recruitment program, but other
ways that the Chinese government or others can get around that
as well so that we have that eyes-wide-open on those specific
prohibitions.
Secondly, as was mentioned, we have the science and
technology risk matrix. This is going beyond what is under
export control or what is under classification and making sure
we are looking at technologies. And just as Miss Puglisi said,
doing a ranking of where are the most are sensitive
technologies. AI is one of the six sensitive technology areas
that we have a particular focus on in this risk matrix. And
make sure that for those very sensitive applications, we have
extra protections. So it is a risk-based model along those
lines.
Third, we do have a counterintelligence unit at the
Department of Energy, and all of our field offices cover all of
our labs. So we are actively investigating and making sure that
we are following up on any leads so that we can be as
thoughtful and proactive as we possibly can. There is a balance
here, just as you said, just as Miss Puglisi said. It is a
great part of our scientific apparatus that we have folks from
all over the world who want to come work here, right? Leading
scientific minds, who, you think of Albert Einstein. You think
of a number of others who benefited our country immensely, and
we want to take advantage of that, especially where appropriate
with open science with areas that are fruitful for that kind of
focus as well. It is also useful to note, I have one statistic
here--many of the folks who come here to work in the U.S.,
including in our labs, end up staying and becoming incredibly
important parts of our ecosystem. So over 90 percent of top AI
Ph.D. students from around the world stay here in the U.S. five
years after graduating. And that is a huge benefit, but looking
forward to working with you further.
Senator Barrasso. I appreciate it because the good news is
90 percent come and stay and then the concern is that there is
potentially the ten-percent that do return to China.
Mr. Turk. Absolutely, or have families there, as you have
mentioned, and Miss Puglisi has mentioned. And again, eyes-
wide-open to take those threats head-on.
Senator Barrasso. Yes.
Dr. Stevens, I don't know if there is something you want to
add on this, but I am interested in how foreign nationals from
countries of concern, how they are vetted before they are hired
in your lab?
Dr. Stevens. There is a process that is actually quite
similar across all the laboratories where there is a background
check. There are the filters that Secretary Turk mentioned in
terms of recruitment programs and their history. There is a
famous form--493, we call it--that foreign nationals have to
fill out. So it's a long process to get hired and get cleared.
And not just to be hired, but even to come as a visitor and to
participate and use our facilities. So I think the labs do a
quite good job of screening this and they make very valuable
contributions. One statistic that I think was maybe mentioned
is that over 60 percent of the computer science graduate
students in the U.S. are foreign born. And the workforce
component that we need to build advanced AI systems will not
function if we prohibit those students from participating in
this ecosystem. So we are going to need to really accelerate
our workforce development, and foreign-born participants are an
important component of that.
Senator Barrasso. So then, a follow-up to that to Mr.
Wheeler. So given the global nature of the technology
development, how does your organization navigate the challenges
of international collaboration while ensuring the security and
the integrity of the research?
Mr. Wheeler. So, much like the national labs, we have a
process for how we onboard talent as well. We also have, you
know, ongoing training that is mandatory. It's around global
trade, and so it's very specific. Everyone gets trained around,
you know, what are the regulations around how do you interact
if, you know, whether it's a collaboration opportunity with
anyone abroad, honestly. And so, we have very strict control
that manages what kind of technology can be transferred, who we
work with, so very tight guidelines there. And then above and
beyond that, for the projects we are involved in specifically,
you know, and this is obviously closer to Department of
Defense, but you know, if it's a project that requires only
cleared personnel, we have that ability. We have the ability to
do secure manufacturing. So we have a lot of steps in terms of
security and who we work with and then how the work ultimately
gets done.
Senator Barrasso. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Senator Hirono.
Senator Hirono. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
So we have heard from all of you that the Chinese
government has a systematic campaign of stealing American
intelligence--intellectual property--to advance their economy
and that our DOE labs are targeted for this kind of effort. But
I want to point out, as some of you have pointed out, the
sensitivities involved and the balance that is required. So it
is important to deter Chinese government wrongdoing and
prosecute espionage and theft, but our concern is about the
Chinese government's actions, not Chinese people. And we must
avoid misguided prosecution such as what was undertaken by the
Justice Department in the previous Administration with their
China initiative. Going after researchers on shoddy evidence
will hurt, not help, American innovation by sending the best
minds elsewhere.
So listening to some of the responses that you have
provided already on this subject, for Secretary Turk, you say
that we are going forward with eyes-wide-open and we have some
proactive steps that the DOE has taken. So do you consider
these steps to be adequate to protect us from the kind of
intellectual property espionage engaged by entities such as
China, and perhaps Russia and Iran?
Mr. Turk. Well, you are right to say it's not just China.
There are others as well, of course--Russia, Iran, North Korea,
et cetera. And I think the short answer and the honest answer
is, we always need to do more, right? The threat is evolving
and we need to evolve our responses accordingly, which is why I
mentioned this risk matrix. We are annually updating that risk
matrix now so that we make sure that we are updating in terms
of what technologies we consider sensitive, what protocols we
have in place. We have a standing group now made up of folks
from throughout the labs and DOE headquarters to take a look
and continually provide ideas to the Secretary and myself so
that we can continually improve. So we just need to improve on
a regular basis, on a continual basis. And as you say--
rightly--get that balance right.
Senator Hirono. Because with the China initiative, I would
say that we did not get the balance right. And in fact, the
message to the Chinese community and the AAPI community was
that here is our government targeting these people, and it
created an environment where AANHPI people were targeted for
various kinds of abuse, to say the least.
For Dr. Stevens, in the wake of the devastating fire on
Maui, residents have been subject to disinformation on social
media, likely coordinated by foreign governments, governmental
entities, and generated with AI to discourage residents from
reaching out to FEMA for disaster assistance and to sow
distrust in the Federal Government. Are you aware that this
happened in the wake of the Maui disaster?
Dr. Stevens. Absolutely.
Senator Hirono. Yes, so, you know, at this point, and with
more of these kinds of natural disasters occurring with much
more devastating results, we can expect that there will be,
probably, these kinds of misinformation to sow distrust in our
own government. So how can we use AI or other tools to rapidly
detect and counter such efforts to spread disinformation,
especially in emergencies or following disasters?
Dr. Stevens. So I think we have to take several steps. One
is to have advanced systems for detection of synthetic or deep
fake information, right, non-true information that gets
disseminated. We should uphold the existing laws that prevent
that kind of information legally from being disseminated
through social media channels. We need to enforce watermarking,
this technique of putting secret information in AI-generated
output so we can detect when it's generated by AI. And we need
to make headway on watermarking official sources, that is,
official news that comes from governments or from responsible
parties so that it can be detected automatically that that is
true and correct information coming out, and distinguish it
from misinformation generated by AI. So there is a multiple-
layered approach to protecting the citizens from
disinformation. We have to do all of those things.
Senator Hirono. Do you think, Secretary Turk, that we
already have these kinds of systems in place, because, as I
mentioned, these kinds of natural disasters are occurring more
frequently with more devastating results. You can't have all
this misinformation out there stopping people from accessing
the very kind of help that they need. Do we have these kinds of
counter systems already in place?
Mr. Turk. So honestly, we have some of them in place, not
just at Department of Energy, but others across the government,
but not as much as we need to, absolutely. And Professor
Stevens, I think, is exactly right. We need a layered approach
and we need to continually update and improve that, and
frankly, have the capabilities, like we are talking about in
this FASST proposal in the U.S. Government so that we can do
the kinds of monitoring, we can do the kinds of analysis that
allow us--not only the Department of Energy, but others across
the government--to have the information and the tools to do the
watermarking and other mitigation efforts.
Senator Hirono. Do the other two panel members want to
weigh in on this concern that we have following disasters, that
there are entities such as Russia that are spreading
misinformation to people who are already in great pain?
Do you agree that we need to put in place ways that we can
counter this kind of misinformation?
Ms. Puglisi. Right. I think the challenge of misinformation
with these tools, as I mention in my written testimony, with
the recent reports about what was happening with Facebook and
other kinds of social media, we see misinformation across a
wide range of topic areas, from the natural disasters to, as I
mentioned in my opening statement, all kinds of activities that
the U.S. Government are either doing or putting in place. So I
think it's a growing issue.
Senator Hirono. Yes. I want to note that in the case of
Maui, the family of federal agencies were there, over 25 or so
agencies with over a thousand personnel, and yet, there was all
this disinformation out there saying that the response was
lacking. And so, this kind of sowing of mistrust by--I would
say Russia was a big actor in this instance.
Once again, for Dr. Stevens, I just want to note that your
testimony highlighted some of the ways that AI can provide
breathtaking opportunities for technological innovation, but
what are Argonne and the other DOE national labs doing to
ensure that the technologies you are helping to develop are
accessible to small businesses to help them innovate?
Dr. Stevens. So we are very concerned about the
availability of small businesses and students and so on to
learn about AI and to use AI. I think this concept is often
called democratization of access. The different DOE labs have
different programs to make access to our computing facilities
and AI models that we produce, that are open, that are safe and
secure, available to those communities, and we provide help for
those communities, whether it's small businesses or whether
it's local governments, to gain access to our systems to do
that, and I think it's an ongoing effort. I think more needs to
be done there. And I think DOE, working in concert with other
agencies, particularly NSF, via something like the NAIRR
initiative, could actually make a big impact on that. And that
is something that we should do together.
Senator Hirono. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator.
Now we have Senator Murkowski.
Senator Murkowski. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for
this hearing this morning--obviously a very, very timely topic.
As was just alluded to in Senator Hirono's question, there is a
lot of good that we can gain from AI, and as scary, I think, as
it is in so many different areas, I think it's important not to
lose sight that when utilized correctly, it can truly be
transformational.
So a question to you, Secretary Turk. As we are looking to
different applications for good within AI technologies and AI
workflows, we talk a lot here in this Committee, and we have
been talking a lot about things like permitting reform,
something that has proven to be tediously long and involving
multi-layers of government processes. Do you see application
for being able to streamline some internal government processes
so that we can reduce the time, for instance, that it might
take for an agency to deliver on a permit, or to really just
kind of process any paperwork, reduce workloads? How do you see
this being utilized for the good?
Mr. Turk. Well, I think the short answer is, absolutely. We
are sitting on a treasure trove of data from previous
applicants for different permits out there. If we can harness
that data with algorithms with AI, we can shrink the timelines
for permitting. We can take advantage of that data in a way
that allows us to do what we need to do, which is build out our
electricity infrastructure, our transmission, other kinds of
infrastructure that we need in our country. So there is no
doubt in my mind, there is an awful lot of good that can happen
in the energy space, including accelerating on the permitting
side. We have got a lot of renewables coming into the grid. We
have got to balance all of that. AI can be incredibly helpful
with the power and the data that it has available.
Senator Murkowski. So you have had an opportunity--a couple
of opportunities--to come to Alaska. You have been read in very
well as to many of the unique aspects. And unfortunately, one
of the unique aspects that we have is sometimes we have a lack
of data. We just haven't done the mapping. We haven't done the
review, the analysis, and so, we know that with AI, your output
is just as good as your input. And if you have these holes in
that, it can be a concern in itself. So how can--again--how can
we utilize the benefits of AI in government processes for good
while ensuring that, perhaps, some states, some areas, like
Alaska, where data is just not complete, that they are not
actually disadvantaged? Have you given thought to that?
Mr. Turk. Yes, absolutely. And let me say what a pleasure
it has been to work with you and your staff. And I have had a
chance to not only come up to Alaska and go to Anchorage, but
also to get out there to Nome and Kotzebue and other areas and
really hear from folks in terms of what we can do from the
Department of Energy to try to be helpful in that space.
But I think you raise an incredibly important point. AI is
only as good as the data that you feed into it. And if you
don't have the data, it can't be the powerful tool for good
that you just highlighted on that front. So I think it's a
continuing effort on our part, and I am eager to work with you
and our Arctic Energy Office to make sure that we are doing
everything we can from the Department of Energy, working with
others in the Federal Government, to make the investment so
that we have that data available so that it can be feeding into
these AI models. So it's an ongoing effort. We are trying to
make sure that we are bringing that in to everything that we
do, but it's an ongoing effort, and something that we will
continue working on.
Senator Murkowski. Well, we do need to work together on it.
And as we identify--you know, I spend a fair amount of my time
on the appropriations side with the Department of the Interior
budget and recognize that we are still directing a lot of
resources--federal resources--to just basic mapping.
Mr. Turk. Yes.
Senator Murkowski. Just basic mapping. So we have got a
long ways to go there.
Let me ask you about the Department of the Interior. About
a month ago, the IG for Interior, Mark Greenblatt, noted in an
op-ed in the Washington Post that there had been an inspection
undertaken by his office and they were able to use a simple
tool to crack more than 18,000--or 21 percent--of the
department's passwords. And this included senior department
officials, hundreds belonging to employees with elevated
privileges. More than 14,000 of these passwords were cracked
within the first 90 minutes of testing. And he noted that his
office was able to do this by spending less than $15,000. That
should alarm all of us.
Probably a general question, and I hope you answer yes, but
we understand what happened at Interior. Is Department of
Energy any better prepared to ward off nefarious actors than we
saw at DOI?
Mr. Turk. So we are trying to continually improve. One of
the things that makes me most nervous, and you are right to
point out the benefits of AI, but one of the biggest
challenges--and the technology is only improving and
improving--it makes it easier for less sophisticated actors to
do more sophisticated kinds of attacks, whether it is
cybersecurity or any number of other things--biohazards, even
nuclear proliferation efforts as well. And so, we have to take
that head-on. That is why we need to make the investments in
the U.S. Government so we can detect these kinds of things so
we can be ahead of the curve as much as we possibly can. But
this is something we need to keep working on day in and day
out, whether it's the Interior Department, the Department of
Energy, or private-sector companies as well.
And this should be a wake-up call. The Pandora's box is
open. We now need to deal with it and we need to take these
kinds of emerging AI challenges head-on. And we are not there.
We are not there where we need to be. We need to make the
investments. We need to keep working at this. This is why we
wanted to put together a proposal, our FASST proposal, with our
ideas of what we think we need to do to try to do what we can
from the Department of Energy side, and again, have the back
and forth with you, with others here in Congress, to make sure
that we are as prepared as we possibly can be. But we have work
to do.
Senator Murkowski. We have work to do. My fear is, what we
saw within the Department of the Interior is just one
department of 12. And where the vulnerabilities may be a little
bit different, but the impact can be equally----
Mr. Turk. Huge.
Senator Murkowski. Equally disastrous.
Mr. Chairman, thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you.
And now we have Senator Cortez Masto.
Senator Cortez Masto. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to
the panelists for this great conversation.
Let me start with Deputy Secretary Turk, because in Nevada
we have--and I want to thank, also, Hewlett Packard. They were
a part of this. We have been having some red team hacking going
on at some of our universities to really assess what is
happening here. And let me address what everybody has talked
about--the nefarious actors. The concerns here that AI systems
can be tricked into providing instruction for causing physical
harm. We have talked about that. We need to address it. I think
we need to as well. I think those red team hacking weekends are
just as important. That's the manual piece of it, I think, Dr.
Stevens, you talked about, that we need to continue. And let me
just highlight, because I know the weekend in particular that I
am talking about in August in Las Vegas, it was designed around
the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy's
``Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights,'' and it's a competition
that happens regularly.
But my question here is one, yes, that needs to continue.
Two, though, it also is building our cyber workforce. Is that
right? That's what is key to this as well is that we need to
have more engagement in building that workforce. I am proud
that UNLV was the host of this and will continue to be the host
of these types of red team hacking exercises. But it also is
part of this idea that we have to create these academic centers
of excellence in cyber defense, which UNLV is, a number of
colleges are. And I think many of you are participating in
those exercises.
So I guess my question for you, Deputy Secretary Turk, is,
what else should we be doing to build out that workforce? I
know there is work going on right now. Can you talk a little
bit about the National Cyber Workforce and Education Strategy?
How does that fit in to what we are trying to achieve with
developing that cyber workforce, and what else do we need to
know here in Congress to support it?
Mr. Turk. So the workforce piece is absolutely
indispensable, and I think there is a number of ways we need to
come at it. We need to have a comprehensive and coherent
strategy to it. First of all, if you want to have top talent
come into the government, for all the functions that we need to
serve, you have to have the cutting-edge facilities and
capabilities, right? The fact that we have the world's largest
supercomputer is a pretty nice attractor for some of the top
talent wanting to do cutting-edge applications along those
lines. We have the data. We have the other pieces as well. So
we have to have that infrastructure that is attractive for that
top talent.
The private sector is going to be able to pay folks an
awful lot more than the government, even if we have bonuses and
other kinds of attractive options, which we are trying to do.
Having the national lab apparatus gives us greater flexibility,
candidly, than if they were all Federal Government officials in
the civil servant kind of sense. And so, I think--and Professor
Stevens can certainly talk about that--using those
partnerships. Argonne National Lab has a partnership with the
University of Chicago--cutting-edge university there. That
helps in incredibly important ways to try to channel as many
folks as we can into this sector.
But I think there is no way we have a successful AI
strategy as a government, as a country, unless we have the
workforce and the pipelines for the workforce, making sure that
we have that capability, not just in the private sector--
incredibly important--but in the government for all the
functions that we need to have here.
Senator Cortez Masto. And as we are building out that
workforce, and I am going to ask Hewlett Packard, if you can,
because I know you were part of this and you have--Hewlett
Packard has a Future of Work Academy for community and
technical colleges and they are involved with nearly, I want to
say, 100 institutions and over 500 students. And so, the
private sector is engaged, correct?
Mr. Wheeler. Absolutely. In fact, I am glad you even
mentioned the centers of excellence because what we have found
over, you know, the years--honestly, decades--is that really is
a best practice for, you know, once you have, you know, a
center with maybe with the compute capability, but you bring
together, you know, those domain experts that are local to that
institution, you know, you bring the universities that are
local there as well. And it really does allow you to develop
that local workforce. And as we think about AI and needing more
and more of that expertise, it's a great best practice to,
again, help develop that workforce locally and just, you know,
kind of grow and innovate together.
Senator Cortez Masto. And this is the opportunity, and
maybe, Dr. Stevens, I am going to ask you to talk about this,
because it is so hard for us in Congress to come back in and
overlay a framework and then actually try to develop values and
principles in that framework. And this is an opportunity, as we
are building out that cyber workforce, to grow those values and
principles around AI. Is that the goal here when we develop the
curriculum?
Dr. Stevens. Yes, absolutely. I mean, as AI becomes more
powerful, as has already been mentioned, it does two things.
For somebody who knows something, it empowers them to do more,
right? So whether that is somebody who is defending our systems
from a cybersecurity standpoint, it allows them to be more
powerful, to affect more systems, to be smarter about how they
can do defense. But it also empowers the other side to be more
aggressive in how they might attack systems. And we need to, of
course, win those battles and we have to create a community and
a new way of thinking--an AI-enabled cyber strategy. And I
think that is what we have to start teaching.
And of course, it's very attractive to the students. When
you talk about cybersecurity, they are already interested, but
then you bring AI into it, and they are super-interested. So I
think we have a big opportunity to bring more people into the
workforce on this by attaching it to the AI agenda.
Senator Cortez Masto. Thank you.
Ms. Puglisi.
Ms. Puglisi. And that is really an essential part--the
workforce in the future competition. And I might add that it is
also--we have spent a lot of focus on looking at that Ph.D.
level or higher education level. It's really, what does it take
to have that technically proficient that does not necessarily
need a degree or need an advanced degree. And I would venture
to say that it's really important to start and begin that at
the K-12 level and really lay that groundwork because that is
really what it's going to take to compete.
Senator Cortez Masto. And that appears to be what is
happening with what I see with the different competition, the
different----
Ms. Puglisi. Right.
Senator Cortez Masto. Whether it's the Federal Government,
state, or private sector, that is the focus.
Ms. Puglisi. Yes.
Senator Cortez Masto. Correct?
Ms. Puglisi. Yes, and actually CSET has done a lot of work
around those topics and the importance of competitions as well
as looking at the demographics of that workforce.
Senator Cortez Masto. Thank you.
Ms. Puglisi. So we can make sure that you have that.
Thanks.
Senator Cortez Masto. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you.
If we could, I will tell you, we have votes--two votes--at
11:45. We got to keep our questions--I know we went to seven.
We will go back to five minutes, if we can. If you need a
little bit longer, fine. If you can stay closer to five, that
would be great.
Senator Hawley.
Senator Hawley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Turk, since I had you before me the last time we
talked, we talked about the radioactive contamination that the
Federal Government had delivered to the St. Louis and St.
Charles regions of my state, and in particular, we talked about
Jana Elementary School in the Greater St. Louis region, which
was then and is now currently closed because of nuclear
contamination that private tests found were in the school. Now,
when we visited last--this was in February--you told me that
you were having conversations about it. I am just looking at
the transcript here. I asked you about the letter from the
Hazelwood School District to the Department of Energy
requesting additional testing. You said, ``I have seen their
letter. We have talked about it.'' You said, ``we are having
conversations, including with the Army Corps.'' You said again,
``we are having conversations with the Army Corps.'' When I
asked you what you are going to do, you said ``I will talk to
the team.''
So that has been multiple months ago. Why don't you give me
an update? What is the Department of Energy doing?
Mr. Turk. Yes, happy to do so, and we have a response
letter to your most recent letter.
Senator Hawley. I have read it.
Mr. Turk. It should be coming today or tomorrow that I was
just----
Senator Hawley. I think you sent one yesterday. Well, good,
maybe there is more.
Mr. Turk. There is another one as well. There are two.
Senator Hawley. Good.
Mr. Turk. And there is a second one that should be coming
today or tomorrow that I spent some time with the team
reviewing and making sure we are trying to be as responsive as
we possibly could on that front.
The Secretary, myself, the head of our legacy management
team, Carmelo, is working with the Army Corps and others on
this front. And on the testing side, in particular, I have
pushed the team several times. I have said, what can we do? Is
there something we can do from the Department of Energy side?
And what we can do is work with the Army Corps, and we are
happy to be very active with the Army Corps and make sure that
they are doing, under their authority--FUSRAP gave the
authority for these clean-up sites to the Army Corps. We are
playing more of a supporting role, but we are happy to not only
play that supporting role, but to try to push and work with our
interagency partners to be responsive, certainly, to listen to
the concerns that you have expressed, the concerns of the
community. It's a horrific situation. I am a parent and I have
three kids. If this was happening in my school, I would be
certainly nervous. If I was a school a few miles away, I would
be nervous as well.
So there is an awful lot that we need to do, not just on
the science, but also on the human element as well. And thank
you for all your focus on this very important issue.
Senator Hawley. Well, when you say that you are happy to do
it--to do X, Y, Z--the work with the Army Corps, are you doing
it? Are you pushing them to do the additional testing?
Mr. Turk. So we are having active conversations with the
Army Corps.
Senator Hawley. That's what you said in February.
Mr. Turk. Well, it's for them--because it's under FUSRAP
for them to make the decisions about where they think it's
appropriate to do additional testing. We have had active
conversations. We are having conversations about what more they
are doing right now, and they are doing more right now. I will
let them talk to you about other testing that they are doing.
Senator Hawley. Oh, I am aware of what they are doing.
Listen, let me tell you what the situation is. Just a few days
ago, the Army Corps reported that they have removed 301
truckloads--301 truckloads--of radioactive dirt from the bank
of the creek that's right near the elementary school. Now, this
comes after they said for months that there was no
contamination anywhere near the elementary school. That's what
they said to the community, that's what they said to the
parents, that's what they said to the school district. And they
said they would not do any more testing. It was your
responsibility to do the additional testing. You said, no, it's
not. It's their responsibility.
So currently nobody is doing anything more additionally.
And this is not just a few months, Mr. Turk. This is 70 years.
Since 1949--1949--there has been contamination, radioactive
contamination in the water, in the soil, all over the St. Louis
region. That is a heck of a long time. And for 70 years, what
we now know, we discovered even since you and I talked last,
because of the efforts of St. Louis residents who got FOIA
materials that show that the Federal Government knew from the
50s and 60s forward that there was significant radioactive
contamination and they did nothing about it and they
systematically misled and lied to the residents of St. Louis
and the St. Charles region and said, no, it's actually--it's
okay, play in the creek, it's fine. There is nothing we can do
here. So it's just the same old story over and over. So I don't
want to hear about conversations. I want to hear about action.
I want that school re-opened.
Now, tell me about the Weldon Spring site, which is another
of these nuclear contamination sites. You have total ownership
of that. When is it going to be fully remediated?
Mr. Turk. So the response that we have for you lays out the
history, and we have----
Senator Hawley. I know the history. Tell me when it's going
to be remediated.
Mr. Turk. And if you look back in our archives, of course,
the Department of Energy was created in the 70s, but we have
precursor agencies that were responsible for the kinds of time
periods you are talking about, and we lay that history out,
just from our records. But we are happy to go into any level of
detail in terms of what the government did or did not do at 20,
30, 40, 50 years ago, at least based on our record along those
lines.
We are very focused on the creek. I have a map here right
in front of me, looking at all the schools and others in the
vicinity of the watershed in the creek area, and have asked our
legacy management team, which is the responsible----
Senator Hawley. But when is the Weldon Spring site, which
is squarely under your jurisdiction, when is it going to be
remediated?
Mr. Turk. So we will have to get back to you on that. I
don't have the exact data on that.
Senator Hawley. Oh, for heaven's sake. Did you not think I
would ask that today? I mean, I have written to you about it
multiple times.
Mr. Turk. We are happy, Senator, whether in a hearing or
frankly----
Senator Hawley. But this is how this goes--you were before
me in February and you said I will have a bunch of
conversations, I will get back to you. It's September. Now you
are saying I will have a bunch of conversations. I will get
back to you. Are we going to be having this conversation again
in six months, or nine months?
Mr. Turk. No, I can get you that information today. I just
don't have it right in front of me.
Senator Hawley. Good. Today would be good.
Mr. Turk. I could get it back to you today.
Senator Hawley. Good. I will hold you to that. And I am
glad we are in an open forum here.
Mr. Turk. Right.
Senator Hawley. So let's get that done and let's get a date
fixed on when the remediation of Weldon Spring--and for those
who are wondering why he was talking about an elementary school
a second ago, and now there is this other side--yes, that's
because there are multiple sites in the St. Louis and St.
Charles regions affecting thousands of people for over 70 years
who have been exposed to this contamination and lied to about
it. So yes, I am not happy about it.
Last question for you. I recently submitted an amendment to
the National Defense Authorization Act that would provide
compensation to the victims of this nuclear contamination. I am
delighted to say it passed the Senate, and as I look across the
dais here, just about every person on that side of the dais
over there voted for it. I thank each of you. Thank you for it.
Senator Lujan and I worked together on this. The President,
President Biden, has said that he thinks it is vitally
important to get these folks compensated for what has happened
to them.
Do you agree with that? Do you support our legislation to
compensate the victims in St. Louis and elsewhere of nuclear
contamination and radioactive waste?
Mr. Turk. So I certainly support the intent behind the
legislation. It's the Department of Justice that's the relevant
agency here. So I can't speak for them or speak for the
Administration as a whole on----
Senator Hawley. You won't agree with the President?
Mr. Turk. What's that?
Senator Hawley. You won't agree with the President?
Mr. Turk. I will always agree with the President.
Senator Hawley. Okay. Well, let me ask again. Do you
support the legislation----
The Chairman. Senator, can we hold----
Senator Hawley [continuing]. To compensate the victims of
this nuclear contamination and radioactive waste?
Mr. Turk. Again, I will leave it to the President to speak
about Administration policy on this. I have not seen what he
said----
The Chairman. Senator, if you want to follow up with a
second round, we will let everybody get their first round in.
We will come back, okay?
Senator Hawley. Thank you, Mr. Turk.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Senator Hawley. Thank you.
The Chairman. Senator Cantwell.
Senator Cantwell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks for
holding this important and timely hearing. Over the recess I
held an AI forum in Seattle. Pacific Northwest Laboratory
showcased its Rapid Analytics for Disaster Response, a tool
that is a detection system for all hazards, and importantly, it
was used to assist in both Ukraine and in some of the Maui
aftermath. Others in the Allen Institute for AI environment
have demonstrated how they are using satellite imagery to
improve wildfire management--really important for us in the
Pacific Northwest. Also using it to detect illegal fishing in
our maritime sector, a very important issue to us in the
Pacific Northwest, and enforcement and surveys of our land for
conservation purposes.
So we need to invest, I believe, in more innovation, and
that is why we, obviously, are supportive of what happened with
CHIPS and Science and now with AI for our competitiveness. The
United States cannot slow down on AI as it relates to our
competitiveness internationally and for national security
reasons. So our national labs have assisted us in
supercomputers, reliable and robust datasets. U.S. Department
of Energy international labs are essential to our leadership in
artificial intelligence. So I wanted to ask our panelists--you
spoke about the need for U.S. leadership on this issue--Deputy
Secretary Turk and also, I believe, Dr. Stevens, you mentioned
that lab supercomputers are positioned to create the tools for
risk assessments to evaluate AI systems. So how do we get both
NIST and DOE working together on these tool assessments in
determining what are true risk assessment, so they are
identified, and what do we need to do to help build a
workforce, particularly in skilling the workforce for AI? And
either one, Dr. Stevens or Mr. Turk, either one of you want to
start? It doesn't matter.
Mr. Turk. Go ahead, Professor, you start and I will then
bat cleanup.
Dr. Stevens. So we are having good conversations with NIST
about partnering in how to take the assets of DOE and connect
them to the analytical and conceptual framework that NIST has
been working on for AI risk management. So I think that is an
ongoing conversation. They are participating in working groups
that we have established, consortia across the laboratories
that are working on how we will do risk assessment for large AI
models. So I believe that part is already moving, and I feel
quite positive about where that is going.
In terms of the workforce, I think the young people are
hungry to work on AI. You don't have to encourage them. All you
have to do is say ``here is an opportunity'' and they are
there. I mean, our courses--any course at any major university
that is on AI is going to be oversubscribed. So I think what we
have to do is we have to provide enough resources that any
student in the U.S. who wants to make a meaningful contribution
to AI in the national interest has an opportunity to be funded
to go to school, to go to graduate school, to do internships,
and to participate. And that is going to require multiple
agencies cooperating on that. DOE, of course, supports students
and supports student internships, but in a very limited number.
NSF, of course, can do it in a much larger number, but other
agencies as well. We need a coordinated, national strategy to
build an AI workforce, and we need some leadership to organize
that.
Senator Cantwell. Okay.
Mr. Turk.
Mr. Turk. Yes, just two things to add. One--boy, what a gem
we have when it comes to AI and everything else in the Pacific
Northwest National Lab, whether it's some AI on a drought study
or with vaccine development, there is example after example
coming out of that lab, of course, working with Argonne and
others of our national labs as well. I think the interagency
partnership here is going to be absolutely key. Professor
Stevens outlined what we are doing with NIST and we need to do
even more with NIST on the risk framework along those lines,
but it's NOAA, it's agency after agency that we have good
partnerships with. And I think because we have the exascale
computing power, because we have data, because we have these
other facilities that you, not only with your role in this
Committee, but your role as Chair of the Commerce Committee, as
well, have been working for so many years to make sure we have
these capabilities that can help work with partners throughout
the interagency. And we just need to leverage that. We need to
take full advantage of that.
Senator Cantwell. And do you agree with Dr. Stevens about
the workforce issue?
Mr. Turk. Completely agree, and rightfully for you to focus
on this. Senator Hirono asked questions about this. We all need
to focus on the workforce. And I know I have talked to a number
of folks, they want to work on AI and they also want to work--
the private sector is great and we need talent in the private
sector, but they also want to work in the government and take
on some of these public challenges as well. We just need to
make it attractive to them in all sorts of ways so that we can
compete.
Senator Cantwell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Senator Hoeven.
Senator Hoeven. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Secretary Turk, you note that China is, you know, working
very diligently to copy and take a lot of the capabilities and
research that is being developed at our national laboratories.
How much, in your opinion, how much have they taken or copied,
and are the national labs really able to protect themselves,
not only in terms of the information they have, but also as
they hire people? Don't they have to be very careful whom they
hire and how they hire and so forth so that they know that, you
know, that information is not going from employees to China or
other actors that, you know, have adverse interest to our
country?
Mr. Turk. Well, thanks for the question. And the answer is,
we need to be very aware and we need to have a layered strategy
to deal with these security challenges. So we have put in place
specific prohibitions. If you have worked in a foreign talent
program in China, for instance--but it's not just China--then
you can't work in a Department of Energy lab. So we have
specific restrictions in place where we see particular risk.
Secondly, we have adopted and now we are annually updating
something called our science and technology risk matrix, which
looks at particularly sensitive technologies. AI is one of the
six particularly sensitive technologies that we do an extra
screening on and make sure that we are taking care of those
sensitive technologies in particular. And then, third, we have
also got counterintelligence experts in our field offices to
cover all of our national laboratories that are looking into
any allegations and making sure that we are running down all
leads along those lines.
But we want to attract top talent in our U.S. national
labs. We want to have that expertise coming and we benefit from
that--public and private sectors. Many of those--over 90
percent of AI Ph.D.s who come and work in our labs and come and
get their Ph.D.s here stay more than five years. So we benefit
from that, but we have to have eyes-wide-open and have a real
balance here so that we try to get it right and update it over
time, too.
Senator Hoeven. Well, you kind of went right into my next
question, which is then what about people that leave, get
recruited away, you know, because they have got all that
incredible knowledge. And what if they get recruited to, you
know, either a rogue actor or a country like China or somebody
that is trying to get the information that way? They are just
hiring them away from you.
Mr. Turk. Well, and it's not just happening with Chinese
nationals, it's other countries' nationals who are being
recruited----
Senator Hoeven. That's true, not just China.
Mr. Turk [continuing]. Elsewhere also.
So we have to be eyes-wide-open on the front end, right, if
there is a particular risk of an individual that we think could
take some of their experience they learn in a national lab and
take it back to China or take it to Russia or other countries
that mean us a challenge in the world, then we have to have
restrictions, and those kinds of screens in place, just that I
mentioned, along those lines. And then, we have got to, you
know, balance the benefits that we get from all this world-
class talent coming here with the risks that we are going to
have from some folks deciding that they want to go work
elsewhere, they want to take what they learn and take it
elsewhere. So we just have to be very vigilant and have a very
layered approach.
And we have empowered a group of experts across the labs
and headquarters to make sure that we are continually
improving, not only our risk matrix, but how we do things more
generally.
Senator Hoeven. Yes, a real challenge, no question.
Mr. Turk. It's a real challenge. There's no doubt about it.
Senator Hoeven. Because you need the talent, but you have
to screen it on the front end. You have to be careful not to
lose it on the back end. I mean, incredibly difficult.
Mr. Turk. It is incredibly difficult.
Senator Hoeven. Along, kind of, in a similar way, but a
little bit different, I want to ask both Ms. Puglisi and also
Dr. Stevens, what about people just flat-out copying? Okay, so
you develop some great AI product, whatever. How about somebody
just taking it and copying it? I mean, we see that with--look
at what Iran's doing with drones. I mean, they obviously just--
and other countries too, just copying our technologies. It may
be inferior, but they are just copying it in many respects. How
do you prevent rogue actors from doing that kind of thing? Or
can you?
Ms. Puglisi. That is correct, Senator. It is a very
difficult challenge.
Senator Hoeven. I mean, China has made a living off copying
and stealing our stuff.
Ms. Puglisi. Right. And I would like to actually have a
couple comments on your first question because I think it's
important.
Senator Hoeven. Sure. Well, with the permission of the--
well, the Chairman is gone, so yeah, go crazy.
[Laughter.]
Senator Hoeven. Go wild.
Ms. Puglisi. They----
Senator Hoeven. Exactly. We can do whatever we want now.
Senator King [presiding]. I am sitting in for the Chairman.
Senator Hoeven. Oh, okay. Take it all back, yeah.
Ms. Puglisi. Okay.
Senator Hoeven. Fellow Governor, we have got to mind our Ps
and Qs.
Ms. Puglisi. The copying piece is very much a challenge,
but it is the technological know-how, I think. I think a lot of
our existing mitigation strategies focused on things, right,
something that is tangible. It is the technological know-how of
how do you actually use that. So you can copy something or I
can translate something, but I still don't understand what it
means. And that is why that talent piece is so important. And I
would venture to say that our system really is not set up for
this particular challenge that we have today. We are pretty
much--we are set up to fight the Soviets. We look for
intelligence officers. We look for a direct military end-use
and we have very narrow laws around economic espionage, which
we could discuss en masse for a long time.
But what is being targeted are things that are earlier and
earlier in the development cycle that are beyond most of our
mitigation strategy. And that is going to be an ongoing
challenge that we think about how do we find ways that we still
enhance and keep investing in that early development cycle
work, which is such an essential part of the DOE labs, while at
the same time, you know, finding those ways to protect that.
And then that kind of gets at the workforce that gets that
technological know-how. It gets at how do we then, you know,
find new ways to face this challenge?
Senator Hoeven. I can tell you have been thinking about it.
It's good you are very thoughtful about that and I appreciate
that.
Ms. Puglisi. Thank you.
Senator Hoeven. I can tell it's something you are working
on and that is good.
Thank you very much.
The Chairman [presiding]. Thank you, Senator.
We have Senator Kelly.
Senator Kelly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Stevens, you know, we have been going through a sort of
unprecedented period of drought in the West--worst drought, as
far as we can tell, in 1,200 years. It has been going on for 20
years. This summer rather hot. You know, it is always hot in
the desert, but we had an unprecedented number of days in
Phoenix, especially, over 110 degrees and you know, we have had
wildfires, unprecedented wildfires, not only in Arizona, but in
other parts of the country and in Canada. These fires have had
significant impacts, impacts on communities. And it has been
clear to me that we have to leverage every tool at our disposal
to mitigate these disasters, but also look for opportunities
here to promote forest restoration, which has an impact on
these. We have a big ponderosa pine forest in Arizona--biggest
in the world, in fact. And we are looking to get this forest
restored.
So obviously, the potential of artificial intelligence
here, you know, can't be overstated with its ability to analyze
large datasets rather quickly and accurately and to predict
things. CAL FIRE is conducting a pilot program using AI to help
with the early detection of wildfires. So my question to you is
twofold. Can you first elaborate on the current initiatives and
advancements here with using AI for wildland firefighting, if
there is any going on?
And then, secondly, a little bit about looking ahead to how
your laboratory envisions collaborating with other government
agencies and the private sector.
Dr. Stevens. Sure. So thank you for that question.
So we are quite familiar with the CAL FIRE effort, and our
colleagues in San Diego have been very involved in building
some of the technology for that. It is a really challenging
problem. As you know, fires start with smoke, often, and AI
trying to detect from cameras on mountaintops and from other
vantage points. Early examples of fire often get confused by
fog or by tractors stirring up dust or something like that. So
there is a need to really improve the AI algorithms that are
interpreting images, maybe to upgrade the technology so we can
get both infrared imaging as well as visible light imaging and
realize it is going to take some time to fully deploy AI and
re-engineer how the processes in CAL FIRE and the whole teams
will use that AI to be more efficient, right? Ultimately, the
AI can put more computer-based eyeballs on the territory than
humans could ever look at the monitors and so on, and so, I
think the long-term impact of AI in firefighting and in
disaster management, in general, is going to be huge.
AI can also synthesize and fuse information from remote
sensing, from satellites, from on ground, from reports from
people texting or tweeting or cameras and from the workers--
firefighters on the ground into a common database that tells us
exactly what is going on. And I think that is going to be
critically important as we go forward to scale up firefighting
efforts. The national labs have been involved in trying to
model and simulate fire in the west, in particular. Los Alamos
has had a very large program for many years trying to build
simulations that would predict the likelihood of fires and to
be able to, you know, understand the amount of flammable
material that is accumulating through the forests and so forth.
I think all the national laboratories are interested in helping
with disaster management, and like the earlier comments about
the work at PNNL, the work at Argonne, the work at Los Alamos
and Livermore, everybody is really interested in this problem.
I think what we need to work out is how we partner between
the federal and the state and local that often have the
responsibility for this into a structure that really advances
both AI, but also takes a practical look at what--you know, we
have to try lots of things, and not everything is going to
work, and then adjust our strategy to focus on what works.
Senator Kelly. Do you know the specifics of the AI
algorithm, and are they trying to incorporate lightning
detection into it because----
Dr. Stevens. The lightning----
Senator Kelly [continuing]. Obviously, a lot of forest
fires start with lightning.
Dr. Stevens. Absolutely.
Senator Kelly. And we know where lightning occurs.
Dr. Stevens. That's right. So we can detect lightning
through the EM spectrum, or through electromagnetic stuff, and
overlay that on the geographical maps and then overlay that
with imagery. So I am quite familiar with how that is being
done, but I don't think it is fully integrated yet. I think we
could actually do a lot better than we are currently doing.
Senator Kelly. Yes, because then you could just narrow the
field----
Dr. Stevens. Absolutely. If there is a history of lightning
there and you are seeing smoke and----
Senator Kelly. Yes.
Dr. Stevens. Exactly.
Senator Kelly. Okay, all right. Well, thank you.
The Chairman. Senator Hickenlooper, do you want to defer to
Senator King?
Senator King.
No, Senator Hickenlooper. You all fight it out.
[Laughter.]
Senator Hickenlooper. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you all
for spending time here today. I think it's a fascinating
discussion.
I want to start with Mr. Wheeler. We have a company in
Colorado called Guild that does training for large companies,
say, Walmart or Chipotle, that their employees want to take
skills-based classes at colleges or universities or wherever.
And Guild does polling of entry-level engineers and coders
across professions. And recently, one of their most recent
polls saw a dramatic increase, like near-universal, in the
level of concern expressed at AI to these beginning level
engineers and across every industry. And every industry, of
course, needs technology. And I think this, you know, the
intense computing resources that are needed to train and run AI
models at scale raise a lot of questions you are already
addressing. NREL, out in Colorado, operates a high-performance
computing data center that is designed to be the world's most
energy efficient. I think when we look at some of these things,
what other types of efficiency can we look at, Mr. Wheeler,
recognizing that there is a level of anxiety that has, you
know, come up in terms of the workforce?
Mr. Wheeler. Yes, thanks for the question, Senator
Hickenlooper, and I am very familiar with the facility and some
of the machines there at NREL, being that Colorado is my home
state. But I think there are multiple ways to look at this. So
I think, as you say, all the excitement around AI--there are a
lot of people wanting to get into that as, you know, maybe they
are transitioning careers, but understandably, you know,
concerned with some of the risk around it. We have a, you know,
something we say internally a lot is, you know, look, AI is not
going to replace that scientist or that engineer, you know,
editor, teacher, you name it, the list goes on. But those same
individuals, those same professionals that harness AI and use
AI will likely replace those that don't.
So that is why, I think, from a workforce and a transition,
we are seeing many people wanting to get into that as a career.
So they recognize the opportunity. And the great thing about
Guild is, you know, maybe they are not taking people that
historically came up from a STEM background or education, but
guess what? With all the tools, everything that is being
developed, you know, suddenly, you don't have to necessarily be
the deep mathematics expert. You can be very proficient with
the tool sets that are out there if you have that willingness
to learn.
Now, that being said, you know, what are those guardrails
that are in place or, you know, how do we think about some of
the risk associated with the technology? You asked about, you
know, what other things can be done. I think NREL is a great
example of showcasing a lot of what can be done, whether it's
from the energy recapture of those systems. As others on the
panel have stated, just providing access to that type of
infrastructure and compute is a big part of kind of lowering
the barrier to maybe some of the anxiety, and being part of a
solution because, you know, if you have a passion around that,
as a field of study on how to, you know, mitigate, you know,
some of the risk around this, well, having access, you know,
enables you to, you know, develop and propose those types of
solutions.
Senator Hickenlooper. Right. Thank you for that.
Ms. Puglisi, a lot of the innovations fueled by AI come
from fundamental and applied research that is adopted by small
businesses. And in your testimony, you highlight about how
investing in research supports our country's technological
leadership. How will the historic investments into
translational research from the CHIPS and Science Act grow our
technical workforce within our innovation economy?
Ms. Puglisi. Yes, I think those investments are essential
because I think what gets lost a lot of times are those
transition points. And so, a lot of funding focuses on basic
research, or focuses on applied, and I think that some of the
advantages that are focused on in the CHIPS and Science Act are
that it looks at those transition points and how do we move
technology so that it best serves the public and best serves
society. And so, having those kinds of skills, those are very
different kinds of skills than actually doing the research, but
having that support across what we call the Valley of Death, or
other kinds of challenges, are really, I think, important to
kind of keep that spark going.
Senator Hickenlooper. Great. Thank you on that.
Ms. Puglisi. Thanks.
Senator Hickenlooper. I appreciate that.
And I will yield, and Senator King, I will wander over and
make sure that that seat is covered if you take a couple extra
minutes.
Senator King. Thank you. Appreciate it.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I wanted to put a fine point on this. A few minutes ago I
put into ChatGPT the following question: ``Write a poem about
Joe Manchin and John Barrasso.''
[Laughter.]
Senator King. In less than three seconds, this is what it
wrote.
The Chairman. Oh my God.
Senator King. ``In Senate chambers, where voices resound,
Joe Manchin and John Barrasso are found. Two different paths,
they often pursue, yet united by a role they must construe.
Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia's hills, his principles
shaped by his home's coal-filled mills. He seeks compromise, a
middle ground's grace, in a divided Senate, he finds his place.
Barrasso, a Republican, from Wyoming's plains, with
conservative values that deeply ingrains, his vision for
policy, distinct and clear, in the halls of Congress, he
perseveres. Though their ideologies often diverge, in the
Senate they engage, discuss, and urge. For the common good,
they both aspire, to serve their constituents, their hearts on
fire. Two Senators, distinct in their view, yet bound by a duty
to represent you, in democracy's dance, they play their part,
Joe Manchin and John Barrasso, with determined heart.''
Isn't that----
The Chairman. Let's make sure we don't eliminate that part
of AI.
[Laughter.]
[Screenshot of the poem as generated in ChatGPT:]
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Senator King. But think of that. In less than two seconds
the data that was searched to put that material together, make
it rhyme, and have it be so representative of our two Senators.
I just think we ought to realize the unbelievable power of
this. That is sort of a homely example, but I think we need to
understand the radical nature of this technology.
Mr. Turk, a homely question. One of the problems in the
energy transition, which, as you know, is one of the major
issues of our time, is ISOs' timeliness of processing
applications for connection to the grid. There is a huge
backlog in virtually all the ISOs in the country. Can AI
contribute, because it seems to me that decision about
interconnection, which would involve capacity, reliability,
safety, that strikes me as an engineering question that AI
should be helpful with.
Mr. Turk. Well, I think the short answer is yes. And I have
been speaking to the heads of ISOs and really trying to make
sure we are doing everything we can on the interconnection
queue, which is a big deal right now, right? If you can't get
things connected to the grid, then we are not going to achieve
our goals. We are not going to get all the benefits from these
technologies. So----
Senator King. And right now, the queue is one of the major
bottlenecks to this transition.
Mr. Turk. The queue and the queues with different ISOs is a
major bottleneck. That is exactly right. And there are a number
of efforts that are being undertaken right now. The FERC has
put out some rules to try to make sure that it isn't just first
in who gets consideration--it's first ready, so that we try to
make sure that we are taking the applications of those who are
most impactful along those lines.
Senator King. I hope you will take steps to use AI to
radically shorten this process. I think that would be a major
contribution.
Mr. Turk. I think it would be great.
I wanted to highlight--there is an effort, the acronym is
i2X, that our energy efficiency and renewable colleagues are
working on that is using technology, among other things, to try
to bring all the ISOs together in software fixes, AI fixes.
Happy to get you more information on that, but it's a very
exciting effort.
Senator King. I appreciate that.
The word watermarking was used earlier. I don't want the
government deciding what is true and not true. That is just not
the way, the direction we want to go, and it's not consistent
with our principles and values. On the other hand, it seems to
me, people that use information, on the internet or otherwise,
have a right to know its source.
Mr. Stevens, you mentioned watermarking. What we are really
talking about is, for me, it's labeling. This film or this
article was produced with AI. That would be important
information for people to have in assessing the validity of
what they are seeing. Is that--how close are we to having that
technology?
Dr. Stevens. We know how to do it. It is a question of
getting agreement that AI companies would use some kind of
common approach and not some proprietary approach because then
how would we enforce or require it?
Senator King. I was going to say, could the Congress
require the platforms to----
Dr. Stevens. They could, but----
Senator King [continuing]. If they are going to post AI
material, it's got to be labeled?
Dr. Stevens. That is the current approach. I think it's
flawed in the sense that there will be, ultimately, many
hundreds or thousands of generators of AI, some of which will
be the big companies like Google and Open AI and so forth, but
there will be many, many open models produced outside the
United States and produced elsewhere that, of course, would not
be bound by a U.S. regulation. And so, I think what we are
ultimately going to end up having to do is validate real
sources as well as--we can have a law that says watermark AI-
generated content, but a rogue player outside the U.S., say
operating in Russia or China or somewhere, would not be bound
by that and could produce a ton of material that would not
actually have those watermarks and so, could pass a test
perhaps.
So I think we are going to have to be more nuanced or more
strategic in this, in that we are going to have to authenticate
real content down to the source. Whether it's true or not is a
separate issue, but if it's, you know, produced by real humans
in a real meeting, that stream would get tagged so you would
know that is real versus something that would be synthetic.
Senator King. I am out of time and I am due over to
preside, but I would really appreciate it if all of you would
give some real thought to this because this is a current issue
for us and we have got a major election coming up in little
over a year. Disinformation via AI could play a pivotal role.
We need your best thinking now. So to the extent you can get
back to this Committee on these subjects, it would be very,
very helpful to us.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Stevens. I am happy to do that.
The Chairman. Well, let me tell you, I don't need to tell
you how informative and how interesting this has been, what we
have received. I think everyone has told you what we are
concerned about. My good friend here found something very
complimentary, and I appreciate it very much, but he could have
probably found something very concerning and harmful very
quickly also.
I think the first line of defense that I am looking at that
I am concerned about is how do we protect from altering
people's lives? And that is basically their compensation,
whether it be at their workplace or if they are retired--
retirement checks, Social Security, Medicare. How well are we
hardened there or basically preventing AI from figuring out a
way to come through another door--back door, side door,
anything differently that could put them at risk of changing
and altering their lives, because that's when it's going to be
very difficult to put that genie back in the bottle. And that's
what I am concerned about. Getting in investment portfolios,
you know, they are doing this all the time--trying, but it
makes it very difficult. And it's bad enough when someone gets
their credit card hacked and stolen and what they have to go
through to get that corrected.
Can you only imagine what this could do?
So this is what we are asking all of you with the knowledge
that you have and expertise, but also the challenges that we
are going to have. I know we think about defense. We have been
talking in Armed Services about offense versus defense. We are
already using AI in defensive procedures now, but offensively
we still want that human element involved to make a decision.
Do we launch a strike or not? That is going to be very, very
detrimental, and very important, and has unbelievable, far-
reaching results.
So I think we are in uncharted waters to a certain extent,
but those of you ahead of the curve right now can help us from
falling, really, into the deep end where we can't be saved. So
if you have learned anything about the internet, we learned
that for all the good it did, there are people out there
waiting to use it for nefarious situations, and they do it
every day.
So with that, let me just say that I appreciate it very
much. I think you all have done a wonderful job presenting
this. You can see the interest that we have and the concerns
that we have, but I think the support that you have from all of
us, trying to make sure that whatever dollar we invest, we have
to invest an awful lot. We are willing to do that. We just
don't want to reinvent the wheel. We want to basically make the
wheel run a little--balance it out and run a little smoother.
So we are all here to help. But again, thank you so much.
Members will have until the close of business tomorrow to
submit additional questions for the record.
Thank you, and the meeting is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:00 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
APPENDIX MATERIAL SUBMITTED
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