If you were unable to make it to last week’s AITalks, you truly missed out on a special day. The first-ever event featured the top leaders in AI from across the public sector. However, we have a special treat today if you didn’t make it.

I hosted a dynamic panel on the role of the federal chief AI officer with two of the first federal CAIOs appointed in the role, as well as a top industry AI executive who’s working with federal agencies as they appoint and institute the CAIO role. It was my pleasure to be joined by Zach Whitman, CAIO and chief data scientist for GSA; Vinay Singh, chief financial officer and CAIO for HUD, and Dave Vennergrund, VP of AI & data Insights for GDIT.

Let’s go now to that conversation at the first-ever AITalks.

The role of the federal chief AI officer

Amina Al Sherif - Google Next '24

Karen Johnson Google Next '24

Scientists Must Be Empowered, Not Replaced by A I and the US charges Iranian hackers who targeted the Treasury and State Departments.

Scientists Must Be Empowered, Not Replaced by AI

GSA’s Login.gov platform gets a new director

By the end of the year, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency plans to launch an automated vulnerability warning program to alert organizations that are running software with vulnerabilities being exploited by ransomware gangs, the agency’s director, Jen Easterly, said this week. Currently running in a pilot phase, the program is mandated by the Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act of 2022 and aims to reduce the number of ransomware attacks by getting the owners and operators of vulnerable systems to patch them before they can be infiltrated. Speaking at an event hosted by the Institute for Security and Technology, Easterly said the pilot is focused on reducing the prevalence of ransomware by using vulnerability scanning tools to let businesses know if they have vulnerabilities that need to be patched. CISA has issued 2,049 warnings since the pilot was launched last January. It has since expanded to include CISA’s database of known exploited vulnerabilities and common misconfigurations that can be linked to ransomware attacks.

CISA is building an automated ransomware warning program

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DHS launches an AI Safety and Security Board

President Biden’s executive order on AI, issued last October, set federal agencies on path to consider the adoption of generative AI in a safe and secure manner. While some agencies have expressed caution in using genAI, the EO discourages agencies from imposing broad general bans or blocks on agency use of generative AI and instead encourages them, with appropriate safeguards in place, to provide their personnel and programs with access to secure and reliable generative AI capabilities for the purposes of experimentation and routine tasks that carry a low risk of impacting Americans’ rights.

Still, the hype around generative AI, inside and outside government, is high, and there’s a propensity to see it as a panacea to fix all problems. But that’s not the case, according to Alison Smith, director of generative AI for Booz Allen Hamilton. Smith joins the Daily Scoop Podcast to explain how agencies should weigh whether generative AI is a good fit for a problem and what the federal generative AI landscape looks like today.

Generative AI is not a panacea

Today on the Daily Scoop podcast from the scoop news group data stolen in the change health care attack likely included us service members and the White House encourages agencies to turn towards skilled based hiring for cyber and tech jobs.

The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon.

Data Stolen in the Change Healthcare Attack Likely Included US Service Members

NASA Pushes Back on Gao’s Cyber Recommendations for Spacecraft and trade groups say CISA's incident reporting requirements go too far.

NASA Pushes Back on Gao’s Cyber Recommendations for Spacecraft

A podcast covering the latest news & trends facing top government leaders on topics such as technology, management & workforce. Hosted by Billy Mitchell on FedScoop and released every Tuesday and Thursday afternoons.

The role of the federal chief AI officer

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