AI safety is often overlooked in the private sector, but Deputy Secretary Kathleen Hicks wants the Defense Department to lead a cultural change.

As the Pentagon rapidly builds and adopts artificial intelligence tools, Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks said military leaders increasingly are worried about a second-hand problem: AI safety.

AI safety broadly refers to making sure that artificial intelligence programs don’t wind up causing problems, no matter whether they were based on corrupted or incomplete data, were poorly designed, or were hacked by attackers. 

AI safety is often seen as an afterthought as companies rush to build, sell, and adopt machine learning tools. But the Department of Defense is obligated to put a little more attention into the issue, Hicks said Monday at the Defense One Tech Summit. 

“As you look at testing evaluation and validation and verification approaches, these are areas where we know—whether you’re in the commercial sector, the government sector, and certainly if you look abroad, there is not a lot happening in terms of safety,” she said. “Here I think the department can be a leader. We’ve been a leader on the [adoption of AI ethical] principles, and I think we can continue to lead on AI by demonstrating that we have an approach that’s worked for us.”

While multiple private companies have adopted AI ethics principles, the principles adopted by the Defense Department in 2020 were considerably more strict and detailed. 

While Ai safety has yet to cause big headlines, the wide implementation of new machine learning programs and processes presents a rich attack surface for adversaries, according to Neil Serebryany, founder & CEO of AI safety company CalypsoAI. His company scans academic research papers, the dark web, and other sources to find threats to deployed AI programs. Its clients include the Air Force and Department of Homeland Security.

“Over the last five years, we’ve seen a more-than-5,000-percent rise in the number of new attacks discovered and new ways to break systems,” said Serebryany. Many of those attacks focus on the big data sources that feed AI algorithms. It’s “very hard for a data practitioner to know if they have been breached or have not been breached.”

A report out this month from Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology notes, “Right now, it is hard to verify that the well of machine learning is free from malicious interference. In fact, there are good reasons to be worried. Attackers can poison the well’s three main resources—machine learning tools, pretrained machine learning models, and datasets for training—in ways that are extremely difficult to detect.”

The Defense Department is grappling with AI safety as it rushes to adopt tools in new ways. Within the next three months, the military will dispatch several teams across its combatant commands to determine how to integrate their data with the rest of the department, speed up AI deployment, and examine “how to bring AI and data to the tactical edge,” for U.S. troops, said Hicks. 

“I think we have to have a cultural change where we’re thinking about safety across all of our components. We’re putting in place [verification and validation and testing and experimentation] approaches that can really ensure that we’re getting the safest capabilities forward,” she said. 

The Defense Department, she said, would look beyond just educating the technical workforce on safety issues and would also reach out to “everyone throughout the department.”

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The Pentagon’s AI efforts now number more than 600, which is up about 50 percent over current-year levels, DOD officials say.

WASHINGTON – U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) leaders plan to invest $874 million next year in artificial intelligence (AI)-related technologies to boost deterrence against potential adversaries like China, as well as to enhance efficiencies in computing, command and control, and logistics.

Pentagon experts are asking Congress for AI funding in several projects, as revealed in the federal fiscal year 2022 DOD budget, which was released last week. Federal fiscal year 2022 begins next 1 Oct. The Pentagon’s AI efforts now number more than 600, which is up about 50 percent over current-year levels, DOD officials say.

In efforts to keep technological pace with China and other adversaries, DOD is leveraging technological advantages and investing in cutting-edge technologies like AI, hypersonic technology, cyber, and quantum computing, among others, according to DOD budget documents.

New technologies like AI, autonomy, and robotics will change the character of warfare, resulting in a faster, more lethal, and more distributed battlefield, experts say.

The Pentagon’s efforts in AI primarily are part of the military’s $2.3 billion science and technology research budget, and revolve around the military Joint Artificial Intelligence Center’s (JAIC) in Washington.

Pentagon science and technology efforts focus on high payoff basic research projects in physical science, life science, and applied mathematics that probe the limits of today’s technologies. Emerging technologies include AI and machine learning; quantum science; neuroscience; novel engineered materials; understanding human and social behavior; engineered biology; and manufacturing sciences.

Much of the AI funding from the separate military services filters through the JAIC, which primarily is part of the U.S. Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), which is located at Fort Meade, Md. The U.S. Army, for example, allocates money from the service’s 2022 budget request to the JAIC for efforts in small unit maneuver.

U.S. Navy leaders say they plan to capitalize on emergent, game-changing technologies through targeted investments in AI, cyber weapons, unmanned technologies, directed energy, and hypersonics.

U.S. Special Operations Command also is investing in AI to increase the speed of processing, exploitation, and dissemination for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance.

In the Pentagon’s 2022 research and development budget request, the Army is asking for $10.2 million for AI and machine learning basic research; for $15 million for AI and machine learning applied research; and for $909,000 for AI and machine learning advanced technologies.

The 2022 DISA research budget request asks for $10 million for JAIC operational systems development; and for $186.6 million for JAIC software and digital pilot programs.

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