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In an unprecedented move, the White House released a new memorandum focused on increasing cooperation between the US national security establishment and the AI industry. Multiple administrations, from the Trump to the Biden Administration, have been focused on the growing threat to US national security interests, particularly threats from hostile non state actors seeking to gain an undue advantage in high tech industries such as semiconductor fabrication by seeking access to proprietary information or technology.
Today's announcement extends the White House's efforts to secure American artificial intelligence against intelligence operations from hostile actors by increasing information sharing between the intelligence sector and the AI industry.
The latest memorandum from the White House covers policy objectives to enhance US AI leadership through talent acquisition, leverage AI to protect American national security and develop a global AI use policy. Within these, the framework explicitly instructs government agencies to ensure that the AI industry can access relevant counterintelligence information to help protect against hostile state and nonstate actors.
It also aims to fortify against risks "stemming from deliberate misuse and accidents," by directing the Commerce Department to work through the AI Safety Institute (AISI) and work with the private sector through classified and unclassified activities. Commerce's work within the framework of protecting against AI misuse and accidents includes chemical weapons and biosecurity.
Through this, the Department will "establish an enduring capability to lead voluntary unclassified pre-deployment safety testing of frontier AI models on behalf of the United States Government," to protect against unidentified risks that might cover chemical, bio security and cybersecurity misuse.
Within three months of the memorandum, the AISI will test at least two AI models to check whether they can "aid offensive cyber operations, accelerate development of biological and/or chemical weapons, autonomously carry out malicious behavior, automate development and deployment of other models with such capabilities, and give rise to other risks."
The nuclear aspect of safeguarding against the misuse of AI will be overseen by the Department of Energy, which will work through the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). This requires the DOE to test AI models' " capacity to generate or exacerbate nuclear and radiological risks," outlines the framework.
It also requires the DOE to evaluate AI's capabilities for nuclear and radiological knowledge. Following its evaluations, the DOE will submit a report to the President's desk recommending any potential corrective actions, particularly when protecting and safeguarding "unauthorized disclosure of restricted data or other classified information."
Sharing that hostile actors have typically "employed techniques including research collaborations, investment schemes, insider threats, and advanced cyber espionage to collect and exploit United States scientific insights," the White House directs the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and the National Security Council (NSC) to "improve identification and assessment of foreign intelligence threats to the United States AI ecosystem" as well as tertiary sectors such as semiconductor fabrication.
It also directs the Pentagon, Commerce, Homeland Security, the Justice Department and other US government agencies to "develop a list of the most plausible avenues" through which US state and nonstate adversaries could harm the AI supply chain.