Artificial Intelligence
AI's growing role in rulemaking raises new transparency questions
As the Trump administration pursues an aggressive deregulatory agenda, concerns are mounting that artificial intelligence could make agency decisions harder to explain and defend.
Artificial Intelligence
NIST unveils new AI evaluation platform
The AI Technology Evaluation will provide exclusive data to grade models’ performance in select areas.
Emerging Tech
The chip in my hand and the chip in her brain
Implanted chips are are moving from novelty to clinical reality.
Artificial Intelligence
Over 30 companies form open-source AI alliance
Helmed by NVIDIA, the Open Secure AI Alliance looks to shore up industry support for continued access to and work with open-source artificial intelligence models.
Emerging Tech
FDA announces first company to participate in health tech pilot
Under the TEMPO pilot program, Dexcom can receive Medicare reimbursement when seniors receive care from their software.
Digital Government
Government service delivery needs standard definitions, former government tech leaders say
A patchwork of technical definitions mean Americans are missing out on benefits and agencies face an additional administrative burden, a new paper from Democratic think tank Searchlight Institute says.
Artificial Intelligence
State department releases playbook for generative AI
The playbook cites the development and deployment of StateChat, an enterprise chatbot, as a case study for other federal agencies eyeing the technology.
Policy
Tech Bills of the Week: Regulating chatbot-child communication; AI in the VA; and more
Bills this week focused on how minors — and seniors — engage with generative AI, gauging AI’s efficacy at the VA and addressing a myriad of policy issues.
Acquisition
Pentagon awards Oracle up to $7B in software consolidation deal
The agreement merges Oracle's product and licensing services into one contract, which the Defense Department estimates will result in at least $441 million in savings.
Acquisition
VA awards Salesforce $1.6B contract for veteran care and services
The contract adds to existing Salesforce deployments for suicide prevention, health care communications and more.
Acquisition
Acquisition overhaul is providing needed ‘discretion’ for tech adoption, procurement chief says
“If it's not in the FAR, and it doesn't tell you you can't do it, then you should consider it,” Office of Federal Procurement Policy Administrator Kevin Rhodes said.
Cybersecurity
After Hugging Face breach, FedRAMP chief tells slow-to-patch vendors to stay out of government
Pete Waterman cited an incident in which OpenAI models escaped a test environment and broke into AI company Hugging Face as evidence that providers must prepare for attacks moving at AI speed.
Modernization
The Technology Modernization Fund has saved little — but big savings are expected later — GAO finds
The head of GSA — which administers the TMF — argued that the GAO report understates the benefit of the program because it distinguishes between cost savings and cost avoidance.
Artificial Intelligence
Lawmakers introduce bill mandating kill switches for AI models
Bipartisan lawmakers are seeking to ensure advanced AI models can be quickly shut down following ChatGPT’s automated attack on Hugging Face data networks during internal testing.
Cybersecurity
Russian hackers can steal government emails without victims clicking a link, cyber agencies warn
The Russia-linked Laundry Bear group has compromised more than 10 Western organizations through malicious emails that can trigger an exploit when they are viewed or previewed.
Artificial Intelligence
GOP Financial Services report cites AI as both fraud accelerator and preventer
With AI playing a more prominent role in the scammer’s playbook, the report says “the counter to this is ensuring that those empowered to prevent and respond to fraud and scams — namely public and private sector entities — deploy the same tools.”
Emerging Tech
Naval Postgraduate School launches AI supercomputer in first for military
The Monterey, Calif-based naval command will use the powerful Nvidia DGX GB300 AI supercomputer to train students in how and when to employ such technologies.
People
Despite firings, acting IG says it’s 'the best time to be in the inspector general community' due to focus on fraud
A panel of inspectors general at a government accounting conference also discussed challenges combating technologically advanced scams and performing more proactive oversight.
Artificial Intelligence
White House accuses Chinese AI developer of IP theft
Tech policy leadership in the White House say Moonshot AI illegally trained its model off of Anthropic’s Fable.
Cybersecurity