NSCAI Report: How Civil Agencies Can Drive AI Progress

The National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence (NSCAI) Final Report is both inspiring and chilling. It paints the promise for artificial intelligence (AI) to transform the human experience for the good by accelerating “game-changing” discoveries. From breathtaking innovations in biology and pharmaceuticals to advances in food production and energy, AI can revolutionize daily life and improve the world around us. However, the report also underscores how AI can be used with malicious intent in the pursuit of power. From cyber threats to disinformation campaigns or China’s increasing use of AI to control its population, AI without values, responsibility, and transparency brings sobering implications for humanity.

As with any emerging industry or technology, those in the lead set the standards. Today, the United States is in the AI leadership position, and, as a result, many of the nation’s values and principles permeate current applications of AI worldwide. But adversaries are taking action, and China has committed to seizing that lead from the United States within a decade. If this happens, the United States risks losing the ability to shape the AI of the future around democratic values. In addition, given how integral AI is to the future—permeating every aspect of life—the nation could see its global influence in the economic arena, international security, and technological innovation disappear.

As such, one might view the report as a call to action only for the agencies most traditionally associated with national security—the Department of Defense (DOD) and the intelligence community. But a challenge this demanding requires a comprehensive response that, as the report cites, deeply involves federal civilian agencies as well.

Many agencies beyond DOD and the intelligence community already work in concert to play a vital role in the national security mission. Examples include:

• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration have been at the center of strengthening U.S. economic stability as they help fight the global COVID-19 pandemic.
• The Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency is tasked with defending American cyberspace and infrastructure vital to national and economic interests.
• The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration provides critical data and decision support information to predict and respond to severe weather.
• The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network safeguards the nation’s financial system by detecting and deterring financial crimes, including money laundering and terrorist financing.
• Customs and Border Protection, the Department of Justice, and the FBI secure our borders and interior from threats foreign and domestic.

All of these missions promote America’s national security in addition to being fertile proving grounds to extend the application of AI to continue our leadership.

There are also less obvious ways in which federal civilian agencies contribute to America’s AI leadership. As the report specifically notes: “The nation with the most resilient and productive economic base will be best positioned to seize the mantle of world leadership. That base increasingly depends on the strength of the innovation economy, which in turn will depend on AI. AI technologies will drive waves of advancement in critical infrastructure, commerce, transportation, health, education, financial markets, food production,” and more (NSCAI Final Report, p. 159).

In this regard, the report is a clear call for the nation to rise to the challenge and ensure America’s continued leadership in this critical and rapidly emerging space that will fuel so much of the world’s economic growth. To achieve this goal will require activating the entire value chain of the national economy toward AI.

From reimagining education and the workforce to transforming technology and industry, the U.S. economy needs to structurally shift toward the objective of innovating and maturing AI capabilities and leadership. But unlike with a centralized economy, America will need to find ways to harness the unique strengths of its free-market system. Government decision makers will need to continue to foster and encourage the conditions to flow labor, capital, policies, and research and development investment toward a singular purpose of AI leadership. 

Federal civilian agencies have an important role to play in helping the nation maintain AI leadership, and agencies can make significant contributions in six focus areas:

1. Standards and Regulations: Agencies like the Department of Commerce have a critical role in helping create industry standards and regulations and set the conditions for competition to drive investment and innovation. Combined, these actions help reduce market frictions, create greater consistency around market risk, increase—where possible—data access and sharing across agencies which is critical to AI innovation, regulate export controls, and continue to promote and protect these emerging capabilities.
2. Competition: As the NSCAI Final Report indicates, vibrant and growing markets will spur competition and fuel AI leadership. With federal civilian agencies representing more than 57% of government outlays, they have an important role to play in creating favorable market conditions to further accelerate AI competition with the power of the purse. And given the dual-use nature of many of the AI capabilities, increasing demand for AI across every civil agency mission will drive competition to deliver AI solutions for agencies’ most pressing challenges while continuing to contribute to the nation's AI leadership.
3. Innovation: Innovation is often driven by the complexity of the challenges. The federal civilian agency missions encompass some of the most daunting, diverse, and challenging requirements across all of the federal government. The scope is broad and ranges from protecting and managing energy and natural resources to serving citizens with health and human services, safeguarding homeland security, and ensuring and creating the critical infrastructure and supply chain, now and into the future. The application of AI at the intersection of technology, algorithms, policy, workforce, and transparency toward these agency mission objectives offers tremendous opportunities for innovation from AI.
4. Research and Development: From aeronautics to semiconductors, global positioning systems, and lithium batteries, the federal research agencies like the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy have played a transformational role—often through partnerships with universities and industry—in the development and maturation of some of the world’s most critical capabilities. These agencies have a similarly essential role to play in helping to continue the rapid evolution of AI capabilities.
5. Workforce Training and Development: The federal government as a whole is the nation's largest single employer, and federal civilian agencies are uniquely positioned to lead the digital transformation of the workforce through innovation in how they organize to accommodate highly skilled labor, recruit technical talent, build their existing workforce through training and education, and drive demand for these types of employees with meaningful roles within government.
6. Responsible AI: With missions that impact every aspect of American life, federal civilian agencies offer unique proving grounds to develop robust ethical and trustworthy AI that remains human-centered and protects individual privacy and rights consistent with the nation's constitutional laws and values.

The United States can rise to meet the call of the NSCAI Final Report, and federal civilian agencies have a critical role to play in leading the way. As a nation, we can harness the power of the public and private sectors working together in a coordinated, national push to responsibly develop and deploy AI at scale if the entire breadth of the federal government rises to the challenge. In doing so, we must continue to prioritize people and place them at the center of this technology revolution to ensure they understand the potential of AI and its many possibilities. With the right framework, we can embed the nation's values and apply AI in a responsible, ethical, and transparent way to strengthen national security. As a trusted AI partner to the U.S. defense, intelligence, and civil sectors, Booz Allen is committed to partnering with the federal government and rising to meet the call.

John Larson is a leader in Booz Allen’s digital, analytics, and strategy practice serving civil and commercial clients. He leads the architecture and execution of analytic solutions providing analytic strategy advisory services; fraud, waste, and abuse detection and mitigation; and artificial intelligence and deep learning services. He holds a double B.A. in economics and history, and a master’s in public policy, both from The College of William and Mary.