DeepMind’s breakthrough, the EU looks to renew its relationship with the US, and DOD IG highlights tech challenges

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Worth Knowing

DeepMind Achieves Major Success: In what experts have heralded as “a breakthrough of the first order,” DeepMind, the UK-based AI company owned by Alphabet Inc., successfully modeled protein structures with an accuracy equivalent to much more expensive and time-consuming methods. Proteins are notoriously difficult to map, but knowing their structures can help researchers understand diseases, develop medicines, make biofuels, and more. DeepMind’s AlphaFold program beat out dozens of other teams at this week’s biennial “Critical Assessment of Structure Prediction” challenge, modeling proteins for which the structures are known but not yet public. The program slightly outperformed current experimental methods overall, and nearly matched current methods against the most challenging proteins. As a condition of entering the CASP competition, all groups agree to reveal information about their methods sufficient to replicate the process. Demis Hassabis, DeepMind’s CEO and co-founder, said the company was looking into sharing the technology with other researchers.
After Press Inquiries, LAPD Bans Use of Commercial Facial Recognition: On November 13, the Los Angeles Police Department banned staff use of commercial facial recognition technology. The moratorium reportedly came after BuzzFeed reporters approached the department with evidence that LAPD employees had made nearly 475 searches over a three-month period using Clearview AI, a controversial facial recognition platform based on data scraped from the internet. The prohibition limits the department’s use of facial recognition to its internal system, which relies on a much smaller database consisting of the LAPD’s booking photos. Clearview, however, is still popular elsewhere. According to its CEO, more than 2,400 U.S. law enforcement agencies have used the tool, and reports from earlier this year said the software was in use in 27 countries.
European Commission Proposes Renewed Alliance With US: The European Commission and the European Union’s high representative for foreign affairs have drafted a plan to strengthen EU-U.S. relations and meet the “strategic challenge” posed by China. The draft, a copy of which was obtained by The Financial Times, is expected to be submitted to national leaders for approval next week. Titled “A New EU-US Agenda for Global Change,” it reportedly proposes more collaboration on technology policy and in dealing with the “strategic challenge” posed by China. Reports indicate the document also proposes an “EU-U.S. Trade and Technology Council,” which would work to reduce trade barriers, align regulatory standards and coordinate foreign investment screening. The draft also reportedly suggests an EU-U.S. summit for the first half of next year to help launch the renewed relationship. 
Government Updates

DOD Inspector General Highlights Tech Challenges: In mid-November, the Pentagon’s Office of Inspector General released its annual report summarizing the biggest management and performance challenges facing the agency in the coming fiscal year. It identified 10 challenges, including “Building and Sustaining the DoD’s Technological Dominance,” “Securing the DoD’s Information Systems, Networks, and Data” and “Transforming Data Into a Strategic Asset.” The report highlighted the potential of artificial intelligence and machine learning to “revolutionize how war is conducted,” but stressed the need to maintain “realistic expectations” about AI/ML’s integration and future use. It also emphasized the importance of protecting technological advantages, citing inconsistent security practices among DOD contractors. The report’s section on “transforming data into a strategic asset” and its emphasis on “cultivating a culture that understands how to use data” echoed the conclusions of the Pentagon’s Data Strategy published earlier this year.

OMB Releases Guidance on AI Regulation: On November 17, the Office of Management and Budget issued guidance on regulating artificial intelligence applications, as directed by a 2019 executive order. Pursuant to that directive to “consider ways to reduce barriers to the use of AI technologies in order to promote their innovative application,” the OMB memo says federal agencies “must avoid regulatory or non-regulatory actions that needlessly hamper AI innovation and growth,” and “[w]here AI entails risk, agencies should consider the potential benefits and costs of employing AI, as compared to the systems AI has been designed to complement or replace.” AI-regulating agencies are now expected to review the memorandum, submit plans to OMB detailing how they plan to align with its directives, and provide lists and descriptions of planned or considered AI regulations.

NSTC Releases Two Reports: Two National Science and Technology Council subcommittees published reports relating to artificial intelligence and emerging technologies:
Congress Passes IoT Cybersecurity Bill: On November 17, the Senate unanimously passed the Internet of Things Cybersecurity Act of 2020. The bipartisan legislation, now awaiting the President’s signature, directs NIST to set standards for the federal government on IoT device security and create corresponding guidelines for federal agencies. The bill has been in the works for several years, but the COVID-19 pandemic appears to have added urgency. “IoT devices are more and more common and fulfill greater and greater functions in our government, especially in this largely digital work environment created by COVID-19,” said Rep. Kelly, who introduced the measure last year. The law would apply only to federal purchases of IoT devices, but observers note that a federal standard will likely raise the overall level of IoT security for consumers as well.

In Translation
CSET’s translations of significant foreign language documents on AI

China’s 14th Five-Year Plan: Proposal of the CCP Central Committee on the 14th Five-Year Plan for National Economic Development. The 14th Five-Year Plan Proposal, approved at the Chinese Communist Party plenum in October, sets near-term priorities for PRC economic development, including for China’s tech sector and emerging industries.

PRC Ministry of Science and Technology: Chinese R&D Analysis of the State of Chinese R&D Personnel Development in 2018. China’s research and development personnel pool is the largest in the world and growing rapidly, according to this statistical report by the PRC Ministry of Science and Technology. However, the report also notes that on a per capita basis, China has fewer R&D workers than the West.

What We’re Reading

Report: 2020 Annual Report to Congress, U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission (December 2020)

Paper: To Compete, Invest in People: Retaining the U.S. Defense Enterprise’s Technical Workforce, Morgan Dwyer, Lindsey R. Sheppard, Angelino Hidalgo and Melissa Dalton, CSIS (November 2020)

Article: China’s President Xi Jinping Personally Scuttled Jack Ma’s Ant IPO, Jing Yang and Lingling Wei, The Wall Street Journal (November 2020)

Paper: Preventing Repeated Real World AI Failures by Cataloging Incidents: The AI Incident Database, Sean McGregor (November 2020)

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