An AI tool offered for cybersecurity also needs protection of its own. That two-way relationship was explicit in the White House AI report released on October 12, 2016. Recommendation 22 asked agencies to account both for AI’s influence on cybersecurity and for cybersecurity’s influence on AI. The proposed mechanism was collaboration, not a declaration that buying AI would make an organization secure. [ai-release][ai-report]

Agencies working on AI were asked to consult government and private-sector security specialists about resilience against intelligent adversaries. Agencies working on cybersecurity were, in turn, asked to involve AI specialists in finding more effective and efficient defensive applications. These are distinct tasks: protecting a technology and investigating where that technology could help protect something else. [ai-report]

For suppliers, our reading is that the report points toward a more technically informed buyer and regulator, not an automatic endorsement of an AI label. Recommendation 5 separately urged agencies to bring technical expertise into senior regulatory discussions, alongside leadership and staff who know the existing rules. It allowed for recruiting specialists or identifying talent already inside an agency. [ai-report]

The commercial opportunity described by this agenda therefore came with unresolved execution questions. Were the relevant specialists involved, and what evidence supported a system’s security? The recommendations alone cannot answer either question or establish lower costs, competitive gains or successful defense. Both source documents come from the administration’s policy process. They record proposed cooperation, not independent tests of products or measured results for customers. [ai-release][ai-report]

Source documents

  1. The Administration’s Report on the Future of Artificial Intelligencehttps://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2016/10/12/administrations-report-future-artificial-intelligence
  2. Preparing for the Future of Artificial Intelligencehttps://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/sites/default/files/whitehouse_files/microsites/ostp/NSTC/preparing_for_the_future_of_ai.pdf