WASHINGTON, DC – October 30: US President Joe Biden signed a new executive order setting out the President's policy. … [+]
AI is coming to government faster than you think.
The U.S. federal government is actively exploring the potential of generative AI across a wide range of agencies and use cases. The federal government is required to publish an updated list of AI use cases annually based on recent guidance. Overall guidance and inventory on how the federal government is thinking about AI are both available at AI.gov.
The submitted inventory says a lot about future directions as it relates to technology and the federal government.
A CSV of over 700 rows describes many use cases with potentially large impact. An example that stood out to me is:
- NASA scientists are using GANs to expand training datasets for Earth science models and dramatically accelerate research cycles.
- The Department of Veterans Affairs is piloting an AI-powered app that captures wearable sensor data and provides personalized physical therapy guidance to veterans.
- USAID has launched a media early warning system that leverages GANs to detect disinformation narratives in manipulated images/videos.
- The FDA is developing an NLP tool to automatically flag drug safety issues in long drug applications.
This document is a potential roadmap for many startups to create large companies serving the government sector.
There are some other more analytical observations based on the data. The top institutions based on the number of generative AI use cases identified are:
- National Energy Technology Institute: 127
- NIH: 47
- FDA: 44
- Department of Agriculture: 39
- NOAA: 36
CSV identified 49 “big data” use cases. About a third of the use cases identified in the document focused on prediction and predictive analytics (I've previously written about AI and data analytics for Forbes). The accompanying PDF focuses on risk management and ethics.
Unlike previous technology adoption cycles, the federal government appears to be preparing for the coming wave of AI. This is a must-follow topic for anyone investing or building in AI. As in previous innovation cycles, governments are likely to become huge investors, customers, and promoters of AI technology.
