A new Government Accountability Office center seeks to help lawmakers identify and analyze emerging technological trends and their potential implications in the future, Nextgov reported Wednesday.
James-Christian Blockwood, managing director of GAO’s Office of Strategic Planning and External Liaison, said he expects the new Center for Strategic Foresight can work with other GAO organizations to “provide that full picture of raising awareness, understanding broad trends, how it’s interacting with other trends, the implications, opportunities and challenges.â€
“It’s more about convening the right level of expertise and providing a lens of foresight in terms of looking at, ‘What are the implications, challenges, opportunities or other parts of the trend or topic that we want to explore five, 10, 15 years from now,’†he said of the new center.
The Center for Strategic Foresight held its first conference in early September with a focus on deep space and deepfakes and Blockwood said he expects the center to make the conference an annual event to discuss other futuristic concepts. Â
According to the report, the center intends to examine other emerging technologies and concepts including quantum computing, 5G, artificial intelligence, genome editing and acellular agriculture.