A bipartisan group in Congress wants to build a resource to guide policymakers as they confront the mammoth challenge of regulating artificial intelligence.
The FUTURE of AI Act would establish a federal advisory committee to examine a wide range of questions surrounding how technologies like automation, machine learning and other forms of AI would impact society. The legislation would also empower the committee with making recommendations to the secretary regarding implementation and regulation in the public and private sector.
The bill was introduced in the Senate by Sens. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), and Todd Young (R-Ind.). A companion bill in the House is sponsored by Reps. John Delaney (D-M.D.) and Pete Olsen (R-Texas.).
Read full story at FCW…
first published week of: 01/01/2018
Council voted to allocate $52,500 for the creation of a community and economic development data collection center.
Erie County Council on Tuesday took another step toward creating a GIS data system that economic development and planning officials believe would bolster the county’s efforts to attract business.
By a 6-0 vote, council voted to allocate $52,500 for the creation of a community and economic development data collection center. Councilman Fiore Leone is recovering from surgery and was not in attendance at council’s regular meeting Tuesday.
A bulk of the funding — $47,500 — comes from the Emerge 2040 steering committee. Emerge 2040 is the county’s 25-year planning document. The other $5,000 comes from the county’s general fund.
The money will be used to hire a temporary, part-time employee. The data collection center will rely on GIS (geographic information system) data.
Read full story at GoErie.com…
first published week of: 05/07/2018
Gathering complete and accurate GIS data has been a years-long process at Gila County. While there is some work to finish, currently parcel information is publicly accessible online at http://gis.gilacountyaz.gov.
(Gila County)
“Nearly every service the county provides is based on the parcel number or address,” says Tom Homan, Gila County’s GIS system supervisor.
“Everyone from the Sheriff’s Office Dispatch and Patrol to Health Department to Elections uses GIS data in their work.”
GIS stands for “Geographic Information Systems,” a concept Homan is adept at demystifying. “GIS data is no different than the phone book,” Homan explains, “except each address has the additional component of coordinates.” GIS data provides spatial information about a parcel, not just what number it is on the street.
Gathering complete and accurate GIS data has been a years-long process at Gila County. Homan estimates that they’re close to 90 percent done and currently have available parcel information publicly accessible online at http://gis.gilacountyaz.gov.
This project has been a collaboration between the Gila County Assessor’s Office and Public Works, where GIS is housed. Homan also works together with municipalities in Gila County to ensure the data is developed accurately and can be put to the best use for constituents.
Homan says that Gila County is at an advantage because of its small size and relatively small number of parcels. “Our deliberate, methodical process is really something that isn’t done by most communities,” says Homan.
Due to its size, Gila County has the ability to work to a high degree of accuracy at a lower cost. “The Rural Addressing program is a critical component of the county’s 911 system along with other GIS data,” states Homan. Especially because the majority of 911 calls are placed from cell phones, multiple GIS data sets play an essential part in public safety. Some of the more common data sets utilized in 911 are structure address points, street centerlines, jurisdictional limits along with law, fire and medical service boundaries.
Read full story at Payson Roundup…
first published week of: 09/17/2018
The Jefferson County [Ohio] geographic information system will be upgraded this year to include more information which could help real estate agents and developers find suitable property.
The county’s current GIS system is about 14 years old and can be difficult to navigate, said Joe Boni, the county’s chief deputy auditor. The county hires a special plane to fly over the area frequently and take pictures of every parcel of property. State prison workers a decade ago overlayed parcel descriptions, allowing for the property to be outlined over a picture of the parcel. That information is updated when the property is sold or split.
E.J. Conn, a deputy auditor in the county’s mapping office, said the upgrade will be the first major improvement to the system.
The county will spend about $25,000 on software updates and about $100,000 in hardware improvements. Boni said the system will have 35 terabytes of information stored outside the Jefferson County Courthouse in a secure location. That is the equivalent of the hard drive space of more than 140 laptop computers.
Read full story at Herald Star Online…
first published week of: 05/21/2018
Anyone who has ever tried to track a subject by storing articles and reports in file cabinets —yes, I’m that old —is bound to get a rush of serotonin upon launching George Washington University’s new CyberWar Map. Actually, younger folks who appreciate data visualization will probably get a pretty good kick, too.
The CyberWar Map, a project of GWU’s National Security Archive, offers an initial screen that displays what looks like the missile-tracking screens in the movie War Games. (OK, I promise to drop the allusions to pre-internet technologies…)
Read full story at GCN…
first published week of: 09/03/2018
Dana Deasy
( Emily Glazer/the Wall Street Journal)
The JPMorgan Chase executive will assume command of the Pentagon's IT as it prepares for a massive cloud contract.
The Defense Department is getting a permanent CIO at last.
Dana Deasy, who most recently served as CIO at JP Morgan Chase, will become the Pentagon’s new CIO sometime in early May, DOD spokeswoman Dana White announced at a news briefing on April 5. White noted that one of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis’s priorities is “reforming the way we do business” and that “in order to do that, we need top-notch talent.”
Deasy “will be responsible for how we manage and use information, communications and cybersecurity,” White said, adding, “This is particularly important as we adopt cloud technology to make more informed and timely decisions on the battlefield.”
Essye Miler has been serving as acting CIO at the Pentagon since early December. Miller had been serving as the department’s CISO and deputy CIO. She moved into a position vacated by John Zangardi, who President Donald Trump appointed to the role of Department of Homeland Security CIO in October. The DOD has been without a permanent CIO since Terry Halvorsen stepped down in February 2017.
Read full story at FedTech…
first published week of: 05/14/2018
DARPA’s multi-year strategy seeks contextual reasoning in AI systems to create more trusting, collaborative partnerships between humans and machines
Over its 60-year history, DARPA has played a leading role in the creation and advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies that have produced game-changing capabilities for the Department of Defense. Starting in the 1960s, DARPA research shaped the first wave of AI technologies, which focused on handcrafted knowledge, or rule-based systems capable of narrowly defined tasks. While a critical step forward for the field, these systems were fragile and limited. Starting in the 1990s, DARPA helped usher in a second wave of AI machine learning technologies that created statistical pattern recognizers from large amounts of data. The agency's funding of natural language understanding, problem solving, navigation and perception technologies has led to the creation of self-driving cars, personal assistants, and near-natural prosthetics, in addition to a myriad of critical and valuable military and commercial applications. However, these second wave AI technologies are dependent on large amounts of high quality training data, do not adapt to changing conditions, offer limited performance guarantees, and are unable to provide users with explanations of their results.
To address the limitations of these first and second wave AI technologies, DARPA seeks to explore new theories and applications that could make it possible for machines to adapt to changing situations. DARPA sees this next generation of AI as a third wave of technological advance, one of contextual adaptation. To better define a path forward, DARPA is announcing today a multi-year investment of more than $2 billion in new and existing programs called the “AI Next” campaign. Agency director, Dr. Steven Walker, officially unveiled the large-scale effort during closing remarks today at DARPA’s D60 Symposium taking place Wednesday through Friday at the Gaylord Resort and Convention Center in National Harbor, Maryland.
Read full story at Darpa.mil…
first published week of: 09/17/2018
(Robert Voight/Shutterstock.com)
It’s one of the many programs the agency will fund under its $2 billion next-generation artificial intelligence initiative.
Even today’s most advanced artificial intelligence tools lack the common sense that lets humans move through the world, but the Pentagon’s research wing is kicking off a program to instill computers with knowledge people often take for granted.
The Machine Common Sense program, launched Oct. 19 by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, will explore multiple methods for teaching computers broad strategies for navigating the world.
Today’s AI tools can only be trained in highly specialized tasks, but through the program, DARPA intends to give the technology a basic, widely applicable toolbox for solving problems. AI with common sense wouldn’t need computer scientists to explicitly tell them, for instance, that gravity always makes objects fall to the ground or living things need food to survive. Like humans, the machine would understand the concepts intuitively.
It marks DARPA’s latest effort to build so-called “third wave” artificial intelligence tools, which are able to apply reasoning and contextual awareness across a variety of different scenarios.
Read full story at Next Gov…
first published week of: 10/29/2018
City Engineer Carl Prewett
Decatur is paying almost $86,000 to a consultant to collect data for a paving priority program and to use the company’s geographic information system program.
The City Council recently approved hiring Magnolia River for $77,000 to rate city streets based on condition, Director of Development Wally Terry said. The city is paying an additional $9,000 to use the company's GIS.
Dustin Curtis, GIS project manager for Decatur-based Magnolia River, said the city is paying $750 a month, or $9,000 a year, to use his company’s flowGIS, a GIS that provides “efficient workflows for field data collection and real time access to data,” and its data system.
City Engineer Carl Prewitt said the goal is to create a database for future paving. The city’s gas tax revenues are usually near $400,000 annually. The city occasionally receives state or federal grants, or it’s able to go to the bond market.
Read full story at Decatur Daily…
first published week of: 07/09/2018
Deloitte's Dan Helfrich shares his views on how the migration to the cloud, blockchain, machine learning and IT modernization will spell the end of traditional IT services. The changes will impact business models, customer relationship, partnerships and hiring for the next decade and beyond.
Helfrich shares how Deloitte approaches these trends and how the key to success will be successfully combining people and technology assets. To maintain and gain market share companies need to master that combination.
Listen to podcast here…
first published week of: 11/19/2018