The Daily Scoop Podcast

In remarks on the new AI national security memo delivered Thursday at National Defense University, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan highlighted the potential AI has for the country’s national security advantage but spoke in dire terms about taking action. Sullivan said simply: “The stakes are high” and if the nation doesn’t act more intentionally to seize advantages and to deploy AI more quickly and more comprehensively for national security, the U.S. risks “squandering our hard-earned lead” with the technology. Meanwhile, the Pentagon is bracing for what’s ahead in the shift to focus on post-quantum encryption and the arrival of quantum computers. Among all of the cybersecurity modernization efforts underway at the Defense Department, cryptography has recently moved to the top of Deputy CIO for Cybersecurity David McKeown’s list of priorities. Speaking at AFCEA DC’s annual Tech Summit on Thursday, McKeown said the effort will likely be a big lift for the department given its timeline and scale. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast on on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

President Joe Biden will issue a memo and framework on the use of AI in the context of national security Thursday, with the aim of providing steps for U.S. leadership and guardrails for governance of the technology. Under the memo, agencies will be directed to access “the most powerful AI systems and put them to use,” senior administration officials who briefed reporters on the memo ahead of its release said. The memo will also bolster the role of the AI Safety Institute and provide direction to agencies for AI use for national security. The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, known as ARPA-H, is seeking information about how autonomous artificial intelligence systems, known as agentic AI, might be used in the health care space. A recent request for information posted by the Department of Health and Human Services agency specifically asks for information on implementations of agentic AI, how multiple agentic AI systems work together, scalability, risks, and how autonomy is decided, among other things. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast on on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

The Office of Management and Budget is getting close to finalizing long-awaited data guidance required by a 2019 law that mandates the machine-readability of federal information, two White House officials with direct knowledge of that work confirmed to FedScoop. According to the sources, who were granted anonymity to speak more candidly, the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs and the Office of the Federal Chief Information Officer are currently working on completing the guidance with a goal to get it out by the end of November. And, the Technology Modernization Fund on Tuesday announced four new investments, totaling $50.2 million, aimed at meeting user needs for housing and enhancing Social Security Administration operations. This round of TMF investments will enable the Department of Housing and Urban Development to modernize the agency’s digital infrastructure and keep up with cybersecurity needs, and allow the Social Security Administration to digitize documents and forms, update beneficiary notifications and use artificial intelligence to support disability claims processing. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast on on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

Since the creation of the U.S. Digital Service in 2014, several federal agencies have chartered associated offshoots, like the VA, the DOD, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, injecting modern, digital principles into the mission work at those agencies. At CMS in particular, the digital service team plays an integral role working to transform how the federal government delivers healthcare to the American people. Andrea Fletcher is the head of that team, and she joins me in part one of a two-part episode for a wide-ranging discussion on the history of Digital Service at CMS, the major themes and challenges the team faces, and what’s next. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is using artificial intelligence to mine tips about potential threats but is revealing little about how the system actually works. Specifically, the bureau is using a system it calls the “Complaint Lead Value Probability” to prioritize tips by conducting algorithm scores and triaging, according to two versions of an agency AI disclosure. The technology, which is meant to help sort through the tips the FBI receives, is one of several AI tools employed by a bureau that also uses Amazon’s Rekognition software and drug signature algorithms. The Department of Labor is spelling out how artificial intelligence can boost job quality without harming the rights of workers, releasing a roadmap last week that aims to empower workforces in underserved communities as use of the emerging technology proliferates. The 17-page document, titled “Artificial Intelligence and Worker Well-Being: Principles and Best Practices for Developers and Employers,” details eight key priorities for AI companies and management to follow that are intended to keep the focus on “centering worker empowerment and well-being.”

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission does not use any legacy IT, having either decommissioned or modernized all of its systems, according to the independent agency’s chief information officer. In an interview with FedScoop last week, NRC CIO Scott Flanders said that even though the agency has turned the page on systems defined by the Government Accountability Office as “outdated or obsolete,” there is still work to be done for modernization and evaluation of the agency’s technology stack. One of the country’s leading generative AI startups is urging congressional leadership to take action on a trio of safety, data and definitional priorities for the emerging technology before the end of the year. In a letter sent Thursday from Alexandr Wang to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., the Scale AI founder and chief executive officer applauded the lawmakers for bipartisan AI regulatory work this Congress while “strongly” pressing the quartet to include in a potential year-end legislative package three “key AI priorities that will better position the United States to become a global leader in AI development and deployment.” The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast on on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

Ahead of the Google Public Sector Summit on Wednesday, Oct. 16, Karen Dahut, the CEO of the organization, joined the Daily Scoop Podcast to preview this year’s event and share her thoughts on some of the top trends in the public sector technology space. Of course, artificial intelligence adoption was a key topic of our discussion, but she also detailed the remaining need for agencies to prioritize continued cloud adoption and security.

Login.gov, the single sign-on platform provided by the General Services Administration, will begin offering a new identity verification option to its partners. GSA’s new option will verify identity with facial recognition technology through the independently certified NIST 800-63 Identity Assurance Level 2 (IAL2), a standard that introduces the need for either remote or physically present identity proofing, according to a Wednesday press release. A final rule announced by the White House on Thursday will further codify and clarify responsibilities for U.S. agencies when it comes to accurate and trusted federal statistics. Specifically, the regulation will outline how federal statistical agencies should carry out responsibilities to produce information that’s relevant and timely, credible and accurate, objective, and protects the trust of respondents and those providing the information by ensuring confidentiality of responses. That final rule, also known as the “Trust Regulation,” was posted for public inspection Thursday and will officially be published in the Federal Register on Friday.

The Department of Health and Human Services is working on a new strategic plan for the use of artificial intelligence across the entire breadth of its mission, the department’s top AI official said Tuesday. Micky Tripathi — HHS’s acting chief AI officer and its assistant secretary for technology policy — said at the NVIDIA AI Summit in Washington, D.C., that the AI strategic plan should arrive sometime in January and that it will span “the entire, you know, sort of breadth of what the department covers. Budget constraints on research and development are limiting science and technology efforts across the federal landscape, according to a quadrennial White House report released this week and a top Biden administration official.The Quadrennial Science and Technology Review Report, unveiled Monday, noted that federal agencies are working to manage current funding for federally funded R&D, but the administration is in a position where it must “continue advocating for robust” levels.

Scoop News Group is thrilled to announce the winners of the FedScoop 50 awards for 2024! Now in their 13th year, the FedScoop 50 awards honor the most impactful leaders in the federal government who strive each day to leverage technology to transform government. Scoop News Group once again experienced record voting for the FedScoop 50 in 2024, receiving more than 1 million votes across five categories. As the Biden administration comes to a close, and the federal government prepares for a period of transition, it’s an apt time to reflect on the transformation ushered in over the past year at the hands of selfless government officials and industry partners dedicated to bringing progress to our nation and the American people. The Energy Department could be a key force in counteracting the “profit motive” driving America’s leading artificial intelligence companies, the agency’s second-in-command said in an interview. DOE Deputy Secretary David Turk told FedScoop that top AI firms aren’t motivated to pursue all the use cases most likely to benefit the public, leaving the U.S. government — which maintains a powerful network of national labs now developing artificial intelligence infrastructure of their own — to play an especially critical role. Turk’s comments come as the Energy Department pushes forward with a series of AI initiatives. One key program is the Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence for Science, Security, and Technology, or FASST effort, which is meant to advance the use of powerful datasets maintained by the agency in order to develop science-forward AI models. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast on on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

If you missed FedTalks last month, you missed a fantastic panel on how federal agencies are preparing for the age of quantum. Fresh off of NIST’s release of new post-quantum cryptography standards, Nick Polk, Branch Director for Federal Cybersecurity, Executive Office of the President; Ann Dunkin, CIO of the Department of Energy; and Michael Hayduk, Deputy Director, Information Directorate, Quantum, Air Force Research Laboratory discussed what’s ahead as they look to secure federal systems and information from attacks powered by quantum computers. The National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Artificial Intelligence Safety Institute is seeking information on the development of chemical and biology-focused artificial intelligence models. In a Federal Register posting, the AISI said it is specifically interested in potential benchmarks and evaluation tools for understanding these models, as well as guidance on mitigating the kind of security risks they might raise. As the Department of Defense experiments with biometric devices to better track the health and wellness of personnel, it issued a $96 million award last week to Finnish health technology company Oura to put its smart rings and services in the hands of service members. While the department didn’t specify in the award announcement how many rings would be purchased under the firm-fixed-price contract — the rings retail for $299-$349 — it explains that the contract will also provide a suite of data analytics services the Pentagon’s health arm can use to take action on the biometric information generated by the devices. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast on on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.