The Department of Defense’s Joint Artificial Intelligence Center has appointed Alka Patel, a member of JAIC’s strategic engagement and policy team since January, to lead the implementation of its new ethical principles for the use of AI in combat, Nextgov reported Thursday.
Air Force Lt. Gen. Jack Shanahan, director of JAIC and a 2020 Wash100 Award winner, indicated that the center already hired an individual to lead the work but did not name the official.
“[Patel] is coordinating these efforts for the JAIC,” Lt. Cmdr. Arlo Abrahamson, a spokesperson for the center, told the publication. “She [is] a deep thinker who possesses a strong and proven ethical foundation in her approach to fielding AI solutions.”
Patel previously worked as a research intern at the Montreal AI Ethics Institute and served as commissioner of the Pennsylvania Governor’s Advisory Commission on Asian Pacific American Affairs. She is former executive director of Carnegie Mellon University’s risk and regulatory services innovation center and previous managing director and senior counsel at the Bank of New York Mellon.
