The Department of Energy and the Department of Commerce will collaborate in research and development projects on safe artificial intelligence use under a memorandum of understanding signed recently.
The Commerce Department will be represented in the partnership by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, home of the U.S. AI Safety Institute, tasked under the National Security Memorandum on AI as a key government hub for safety efforts on the technology, DOE said Wednesday.
Besides facilitating joint research and information sharing, the MOU will also enable the DOE and its national laboratories to provide technical support to the US AISI and NIST, the department added.
Focus Areas and Leaders of the Collaboration
The activities that will be pursued under the DOE-DOC agreement include evaluating AI models’ impact on public safety, such as risks to energy security and critical infrastructure. The key tasks for the risk analyses extend to such efforts as developing and evaluating privacy-enhancing solutions to protect personal and commercial proprietary information.
The DOE and DOC appointed their respective principal coordinators to facilitate the departments’ collaboration on AI safety. The appointees are Helena Fu, DOE director of the newly created Office of Critical and Emerging Technologies, and Elizabeth Kelly, US AISI director as the Commerce Department coordinator.