The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has taken a significant step towards safeguarding America’s critical infrastructure from the potential risks of artificial intelligence (AI) with the establishment of the Artificial Intelligence Safety and Security Board. Announced on April 26, the board is part of an initiative to ensure the responsible use of AI technologies across vital sectors.
This new board, comprised of 22 leaders from industry, academia, and government, including top executives from major AI and tech companies as well as Arati Prabhakar, the Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, is tasked with guiding the safe deployment of AI within critical infrastructure realms such as energy, banking, healthcare, and communications.
The board’s members are:
- Sam Altman, CEO, OpenAI;
- Dario Amodei, CEO and co-founder, Anthropic;
- Ed Bastian, CEO, Delta Air Lines;
- Rumman Chowdhury, Ph.D., CEO, Humane Intelligence;
- Alexandra Reeve Givens, president and CEO, Center for Democracy and Technology
- Bruce Harrell, mayor of Seattle, Washington; chair, Technology and Innovation Committee, United States Conference of Mayors;
- Damon Hewitt, president and executive director, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law;
- Vicki Hollub, president and CEO, Occidental Petroleum;
- Jensen Huang, president and CEO, NVIDIA;
- Arvind Krishna, chairman and CEO, IBM;
- Fei-Fei Li, Ph.D., co-director, Stanford Human-centered Artificial Intelligence Institute;
- Wes Moore, governor of Maryland;
- Satya Nadella, Chairman and CEO, Microsoft;
- Shantanu Narayen, chair and CEO, Adobe;
- Sundar Pichai, CEO, Alphabet;
- Arati Prabhakar, Ph.D., assistant to the president for science and technology; director, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy;
- Chuck Robbins, chair and CEO, Cisco; chair, Business Roundtable;
- Adam Selipsky, CEO, Amazon Web Services;
- Lisa Su, chair and CEO, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD);
- Nicol Turner Lee, Ph.D., senior fellow and director of the Center for Technology Innovation, Brookings Institution;
- Kathy Warden, chair, CEO and president, Northrop Grumman; and
- Maya Wiley, president and CEO, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.
The formation of the board is a direct response to President Biden’s executive order from late October 2023, which directed DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to establish a group that would support the development and management of AI technologies responsibly. Secretary Mayorkas emphasized the transformative potential of AI, stating, “Artificial Intelligence is a transformative technology that can advance our national interests in unprecedented ways. At the same time, it presents real risks – risks that we can mitigate by adopting best practices and taking other studied, concrete actions.”
The board is expected to provide targeted recommendations to Secretary Mayorkas, pipeline and grid operators, and other private sector stakeholders, focusing on strategies to leverage AI while minimizing associated risks.
The inaugural meeting of the board is scheduled for early May, with subsequent gatherings planned on a quarterly basis. This initiative underscores the Biden administration’s commitment to managing the complex implications of AI, ensuring that technological advancements bolster, rather than undermine, national security and the functionality of essential services.
“AI is one of the most powerful technologies of our time. President Biden has made clear that we must manage AI’s risks so that we can seize its benefits,” added Prabhakar. With these measures, DHS aims to fortify the nation’s critical infrastructure against potential AI-induced vulnerabilities, securing a safe technological future for all Americans.
This new board comes about after the DHS debuted its first-ever AI Roadmap.
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