Technology officer of the United States. And i want to go over a few of the things that michael has achieved in this last month. I use as my benchmark, in the last six months i watched half a season of breaking bad and got ancy and read the rest of the plot summaries on wikipedia. Here is what michael has achieved in the last several months an a. I. Executive order in february. In may, the oacd a. I. Principles. In june the a. I. R d strategic plan. In september the nidert supplemental budget. How are you going to top that . Thank you so much. Im extraordinarily glad to be here. The efforts by this commission are incredible and theyre a complement to everything the administration has been driving since inauguration. And having such an incredible set of commissioners drive the agenda, were very lucky as a nation to have this group working for the american people. That being said, weve been extraordinarily excited about what weve been able to drive on a. I. I think our sort of Big Initiative was to make sure we got the executive order out in february. And now we can jump into that a little bit. But i think that we have big pillars on how were coordinating better r d across the agencies. Theres a lot of work force on that, international engagement. I think the last piece we havent put out publicly but should be coming out in the coming weeks is the white house Regulatory Guidance memo to the agencies. Were going to have a first of its kind document anywhere in the world where we have a document with Legal Backing to go out there and tell the agencies how they should be thinking about regulatory or approaches to a. I. Technology. If youre the department of transportation and youre trying to regulate autonomous vehicles, if youre the fda regulating diagnostics, these are agencies think of the Artificial Intelligence of the domains theyre overseeing. Youre going to see a lot of the core themes that United States generally thinks about. We want to create an environment that incentivizing the next generation to make investments and make break throughs in the United States. Doing that while maintaining the values we hold dear. Its something were going to put out for comments in the next couple of weeks and lots of people in the room will take time to tell us what we did wrong. A lot of the smart people in the room have worked in the agency process. They know how hard it is to accomplish things quickly. You all accomplished a lot quickly. Can you tell me about some of the Biggest Challenges that you faced in getting the agencies and departments on the same sheet of music . Yeah, i think what is challenging about a. I. And youre all experts in that spacer here so you know. Its something that touches a wide, wide range of agencies. So, if youre attempting to put together an Interagency Group thats going to come to some sort of interagency consensus on the document the president of the United States himself is going to sign, thats a tall order. I think if we think of the biggest equities, both civilian and security equities. In every priority were driving, if we take a step back and say what is the main tech agenda of the white house and this administration, it is to ensure American Leadership in emerging technologies. We have been working towards crafting strategies on a. I. To quantum to 5g and so on down the line. We see the world as a twosided coin. Theres a promote and a protect side of that particular technology. And for us to come to some sort of interagency consensus, we have to find balance between those two things. And i think we our big event at the white house in march of last year where we brought together stakeholders and opened up the conversation on national a. I. Strategy. When we launched the strategy, it took almost a year. We signed in february. It took time but at the end of the day we have a comprehensive piece of work there and something were extraordinarily proud of. I know that the protect part of this is the one that most strongly intersects with the work that the commission has done. I wonder given that security is just one part of the executive order, if you could tell us what will you think we got right and wrong on the National Security side of a. I. So, i think as a commission i think you have done an extraordinary job of wrapping up the large themes that need to drive whatever our National Security posture is on Artificial Intelligence. So, i think a couple of key ones first that always come to mind to me, and its, you know, i see shanahan here, being able to integrate intelligence into the way all the armed forces do their work is something thats a really, really, really hard task and the d. O. D. Is a massive agency and everyone has their own equities and own interests and own way of doing things and finding pathways to be able to integrate this technology across all the various branches i think is something we need to do a lot of work on and something we have a great team who are on it. I think thats something were very much aligned on. The other thing that i think is cross cutting between both the Security Side and civilian is the talent question, this desire of how can we continue to bring in the most talented a. I. Scientists and technologists from the private sector and from academia into our federal family here to drive the outcomes that we need, so continue to drive that. And i think the third piece is something that, you know, our director talks a lot about. And this is the idea of partnerships, the idea that world of technological innovation has changed. Theres the idea that companies have all the answers for the Technology Solutions is over. We need to find a way to create better pathways and connections with start ups and Smaller Companies that can make huge break throughs that can impact the way we operate and deliver on our mission. So, finding ways to bring those folks in the fold is something that i think we agree on a lot. What did we get wrong . I dont know. It sounded so good to me across board. You know, i think one place where i think we want to fine tune but i think were getting to a good position is how we can ramp up on research and development. I think the administration has made a commitment to prioritizing Artificial Intelligence in a way thats never before been done in the history of our country. So, President Trump was the first in history to include Artificial Intelligence in a budget and a budget that was sent to congress and that was done twice. In our priorities memo that is we promulgated from the white house to the agencies we called out Artificial Intelligence for the first time in history under this president. I think were aligned in prioritizing it. I think where we should Work Together on and find a good way forward is what is the right number. If we want to start cranking up the amount of research and Development Spending done by the federal government, what is the right number there and how can we do it in a way that the system can absorb those dollars. I think we should Work Together and find those specifics and work with congress in and omb and other stakeholders to get to a place that works for everyone. So, following up on that point, china has a published strategy to achieve global a. I. Leadership. There are various estimates of how much chinas spending. You all sponsored i think a really careful analysis sort of casting doubt on some of the ways those estimates have been made. What do you think though in terms of the financial commitment that is the United States should be making . Whats the rough order of magnitude that you would guess is the right level for us . Yeah, to me i think were interested in this question because i think theres based on sort of whos in this room and the cameras back there and everyone else, its very care journalists care a lot about covering this horse race between us and our adversary on how we develop Artificial Intelligence globally. Frankly i think theres a lot of misinformation around the way that other folks around the world are prioritizing Artificial Intelligence. We know that Senior Leaders in china have expressed desire to have china lead the world in a. I. In a decade, but the question is what are they actually doing. I think the smart people like your team who are trying to dig through this stuff and through ida and i think needs careful evaluation. If you rewind another 20 years and look back at the housing boom and the bubble that happened in china the expectations of what was going on and what the press was talking about did not match what the reality was at all on the ground. There was a huge, huge disconnect between whats being reported in the reality situation. We need the smartest minds out there to be able to dig through and do the Important Research on figuring out where we are so we can think about how it stacks. What i think is very different about our model and the chinese model is that the dollars that they throw around are not ones that i think even if they were true should be compared at all with the way that our federal government spends money. If we look at for us we have an extraordinarily vibrant private ecosystem that spends a large amount on dollars on innovation and those are the types of dollars that would be necessarily rolled up in the way that chinese think about their numbers. I think we need to make sure whenever we do have that conversation its apples to apples. To me i think if were thinking about how we can do a progressive roll up, i think thinking in the orders of magnitude of doubling or so what were doing today i think is a goal we should all strive for and something i think could make a big difference in the ecosystem and one that the ecosystem can absorb. So, in the last panel, we heard a lot about the kinds of strategic advantages that the United States enjoys by having allies. We have friends. And thats not true of some of our competitors. They dont have many friends. You have helped to lead the work that ocd did on the a. I. Principles and i think that was one of the first multilateral papers on issues a set of a. I. Norms. What do you think is the next step for the United States to lead on values internationally . Yeah, i think our office is very proud of the work we did at the ocd in an environment where our administration is very thoughtful about entering into new multilateral agreements and takes those decisions very, very seriously, we got to a point where were able to get that agreement signed, signed in paris in may. So, its something were proud of and i think it speaks to how critically important it is for us to come together with our allies who share our values. To me i think whats frightening for Many Americans and many people in the west is the way that the chinese have Twisted Technology to really use it in a way which flagrantly violates the way we think about the world. When Artificial Intelligence is used to surveil people, to imprison minorities, to violate human rights, its something we as the west cannot stand for. I think that is why we as western democracies need to come together and reassert that these are the values that we deeply believe in. And whats more important and fundamental about this issue is as i talked earlier, we think a lot about promote and protect. And we can, you know, go around the world and talk about how important it is to have secure communications networks, how important it is to make sure our Research Ecosystem is protected from people attempting to do malicious things. But at the same time we need to think about the other side of the coin, come together with our allies and talk about how we can drive and make sure the next generation of technologies are developed in the west. I think thats whats absolutely critical. And the o. C. D is a first step and something we need to do with our allies because theyre as eager as we are to lead the world in technological discovery. Can you say a little bit about what you saw as the biggest surprises of the process of working with the other oacd members in trying to formulate a set of principles . In all honesty i think we were surprised how we got the princeals to reflect what the president directed in his executive order. I think we went into that process very skeptical about the ability to move the room in a direction that was more proinnovation and less propreemptive regulation. We had a really good conversation with them about how stressing how whatever we do we need to make sure were not stifling integration in the day. We might have greatest innovation in the books but thats not helping drive innovation next generation. So, for us, i think what i was most surprised is how close we got it to what the president directed in his executive order and i think it shows if we can enga engage smartly early and with clear eyes we can move our allies closer to the way we think about the world. So, ostp is a pretty privileged place to sit because youre able to cherry pick from some of the best technical talent across the government. Its often been a challenge for parts of the federal government to bring in technical talent as well as talent that might be in adjacent areas relevant to policies going forward, things like trade analysis and trade strategy, tech policy and tech law. Can you describe some of the ways in which you think government is going to have to meet this challenge . Yeah. I mean we have struggled and i think its something that kind of the entire administration thinks about generally when we bring talent in the administration. And i think the last administration thought very carefully about this especially around the way you can bring tech talent in to serve citizenfacing technology issues. They created the United StatesDigital Service which we have continued to support and continued to try to give the resources they need to bring talent in. Theres a president ial Innovation Fellows Program that was signed into law by obama on the way out. Thats another great, great option where we can bring in talent for tour of duty. But each of the programs has its own limb titations. We need to think about how we can clear pathways for talented individuals who want to make a difference for our country to be able to come here quickly, make a difference, and then go back to what they were doing before. This idea that we can get the latest and greatest technologist to make a commitment to working in the federal government, we shouldnt stop trying to work for that, but we should try to find other lines of effort to bring people in. Building off that, theres this observation attributed to bill joy that most of the smartest people always work for somebody else. And theres a great addition that you all made to the national a. I. Strategic plan. What are some of the approaches you see being mostly likely to succeed in building stronger partnerships between government industry, academia, making those relationships more fluid . That could not be more important. Its something andrew and i talked about at length. It goes back to this talent question. I think we all are very familiar with the issue that sort of very high end a. I. Talent is facing do. They stay at academic institutions. If they go to work at private institutions, is the work tied up in the closed wall garden of where were working. And how do they move into the private sector and so on to drive innovation. To us theres Important Partnership models that can happen where if youre able to bring innovators along with the federal government you can make a really big difference. And i think congress is on our side on that. Many of you may have tracked the National QuantumInitiative Act signed by the president on december 21st. Its three main agencies driving it. And as part of that legislation, there was a call to create quantum consortia. You have private institutions working with the federal government to create space to do the research and translate into commercialized stuff. And i think a way we have tried to incorporate that and the way were thinking about Artificial Intelligence, weve seen the first roots oof that take hold and the thats the effort of the foundation to set up consortium. I think the dollar amounts assigned to them, you could add a couple of zeros. But i think were at least as a start able to build the connective tissue on how to create good partnerships. I think general shanahan has pointed out that in so many of the really upside potential applications of a. I. And d. O. D. , its to process automation. Its to those back office task that is right now take so much human effort and arent really taking advantage of the human skills that some of these exquisitely trained officers have been given. What are examples of process innovation within government that youre most excited about . There are all sorts. I think the contracting stuff i think is very fascinating. One effort that were working on is kind of under sort a. I. Used at looking at regulations, this idea that the federal register is absolutely massive in the way that we can kind of look at it and sort of optimize regs in a way or find regulations that dont necessarily meet the world that we live in today whether its, you know, regulation talk about using fax machines or whatever it may be. Theres an effort underway there. To me, i think any sort of supply chainrelated logistics questions, some of the stuff that the d. O. D. Is looking at can make a really big difference. We hosted an event at the white house about a month ago where we launched our Larger Agency effort on a. I. And government. And i think one of the realizations out of that event was that the bar is really, really low. And i think its something that the jake and folks at d. O. D. Have seen as well. You can make a pretty big impact early on because theres a lot of low hanging fruit. That being said, i think we need to do a great job of sort of educating, training up, and finding ways that we can work with people who want to implement a. I. But its not something theyve done before. So, one thing were thinking on the civilian side is launching a center of excellence for Artificial Intelligence at gsa. This is a model weve used for other efforts where we know for example that multiple agencies need to move from the cloud need to move to the cloud for email services or whatever it may be and 80, 90 of the work that needs to be done to make that transition is the same. So, theres no reason to reinvent the wheel every time. So, creating a hub like that at gsa that can provide an 80 solution for a lot of maybe the 5 most common processes to use a. I. Can be a really great way to start baking these things into a number of agencies. Michael, i know you do multiple talks like this a day. This is a rare instance where youve got most of the military and civilian leadership relevant to a. I. In one room. What are the key questions that havent come up that you want to make sure to get across . This has probably come up but i want to reiterate it. When we as the white house think about what is the National Technology propolicy of the white house, the number one issue that we are attempting to tackle is to ensure American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence. Its something weve been driving hard on for two years and weve gone out of our way to make sure our strategy was signed out by the president himself. If we look back at other strategies created by administrations in the past, very few have been signed by the president himself. Its something we took a lot of pain staking effort to make sure it got there and maybe it took a little bit longer than we wanted. But the result is we have something at the backing of the president. Were extraordinarily excited to drive that agenda and its something we can work with to make sure its something we can do a great job on. I think whats fantastic is we have strong tieins with congress. This is not something that d. O. D. Can do alone or congress can do alone. Its something we can all do together. I think were excited to bring these pieces together and bring together congress that can do incredible work on the legislative front with us at the administrative level to bring it all together. For the last three years, ive admired not only your clarity of expression but also your conciseness. What a. I. Enabled invention are you most excited about . It sounds borderline well, i think health care. And i think i always give a personal anecdote. My father has parkinsons and when i think about the ways that we can sort of use these Incredible Technologies to help americans and people all around the world suffering from these debilitating diseases, i think we can make an incredible and huge impact. Its so inspiring to see our National Labs working with amazing researchers and doctors and scientists across the country to use a. I. To drive the next generation medical break throughs and anything we can do to make that possible is something im deeply committed to personally and i think its something that can make a huge difference for our country. Thank you. Please join me in thanking michael for his leadership. Thank you. Cspans campaign 2020 is with President Trump live tuesday at 7 00 p. M. Eastern as he holds a Campaign Rally in sunrise florida, his first since changing his residency from new york to florida in late october. Live coverage on cspan, watch online at cspan. Org or listen on the go with the cspan radio app. During thanksgiving week, were featuring book tv programs show casing whats available every weekend on cspan 2. We begin tonight at 8 30 eastern with books on corporate america. Ed stack, the ceo of Dicks Sporting Goods discusses the decision to stop selling guns. Then Charles Schwab and pamela newsom. Watch book tv tonight on cspan 2. Our cspan campaign 2020 bus team is traveling across the country visiting key battleground states in the 2020 president ial race asking voters what issues they want president ial candidates to address during the campaign. I think one of the most pressing issues we are facing is poverty and income inequality with the richest of the country getting richer and sort of cliche, but the poor getting poorer. And something has to be done to equalize things, not necessarily taking money away from rich people, but making sure those at the lower ends of the economic spectrum have more opportunity to better themselves, get better education, and the country is creating jobs for people so they can get out of poverty and their children can get out of poverty and we can continue to build the middle class. One question i would have is how would you tackle the Climate Crisis without coming off as partisan . And in 2020, i would like the candidates to focus more on the black agenda. I feel like it was inadequately discussed during the democratic primaries. The fact there is still a black agenda after all these years proves there is something wrong, theres not enough being done. In all honesty, thus this is one part of race reparations that needs to take place. I was wondering what are the campaigns doing to attack the issues of global warming. Every day were seeing drastic changes in the weather and also in the forest fires and drastic changes to the climate. What is being done during your campaign to address the issues . Voices from the campaign trail, part of cspans battleground states tour. Up next, a panel looks at improving the budget and appropriations process in