Energy and Resources Committee is about two hours. Over the past few years, since six have been working to understand the challenges around ai and various issues. Argonne National Laboratory in illinois, Lawrence Livermore, Lawrence Berkeley in california. Those are the most, new mexico. And oak ridge, tennessee. The labs work in bringing together both fundamental science and National Security missions. This hearing will examine their findings. This hearing will also discuss the 1. 8 billion exit scale Computing Program that the committee authorized. If we want to invest in ai in a costeffective way, we must build on existing programs and avoid wasting resources and duplication. Most people think about the department of energy for his work advancing Energy Technologies like nuclear reactors, energy efficiencies, Carbon Capture and hydrogen. Doe does more than just energy. The Department Also is the largest supporter of physical, Scientific Research in the federal government. Conducting research and developing technologies across a range of fields. We spent a lot of time examining doe Critical Role in research in the context of the endless frontier act which ultimately came via the chips and science act. Jump starts privatesector innovation and strengthens our economy and is essential to our National Security. Doe research ensures the u. S. Can anticipate, detect, assess and mitigate emerging Technology Threats related to advanced computing, biotechnologies, Nuclear Security and more. Artificial intelligence stands out across does vast mission and has the potential to revolutionize scientific discovery, Technology Deployment and National Security. Ai is already changing the world at a remarkable pace. We are seeing its deployed in battlefields across the world. Ukraine has successfully used ai against russian forces. Also, ai helped us fight covid19. The oak ridge National Laboratorys uses Artificial Intelligence and Computing Resources to model proteins in the coronavirus to help develop vaccines. Make no mistake, Artificial Intelligence also presents many risks. Earlier this year, a class of students at m. I. T. Was tasked with investigating whether ai chatbots could be prompted to assist nonexperts in causing a pandemic. In just one hour, the chatbot suggested four potential pandemic pathogens and explain how they could be generated from synthetic dna using reverse genetics, supplied the names of the dna synthesis companies that are likely to screen orders, identified protocols and how to troubleshoot them. And recommended that anyone lacking the skills to perform reverse genetics engage a research organization. That comes from a Research Paper titled, can Large Language Models biotechnology . Which i ask unanimous consent to enter into the record. Scientific and engineering expertise has long been a very a barrier. Until now, the common person has not had access to the resources or the knowhow to launch these hightech threats on human society. Eliminating much of the expertise from developed weapons from a disease or cyber attack thereby eroding defenses. Ai is not a new issue for the committee or to the department of energy. Since the 1960s, doe has been a key player in investments in ai. As we all know, we have 70 National Labs, 34 user facilities of americas r d network. Has as a workforce of 70,000 scientists, engineers, resources and support personnel with world leading scientific expertise Whose Mission is to serve the american people. Each of these labs plays a significant role in the ai. Doe is also the largest and manages more Scientific Data than any other agency in the u. S. As a result, the department has Computing Resources, expertise, experience managing large volumes of data that give the Department Natural leadership. When federal agencies have an ai problem, they look to the doe. Over the past decade, the department has developed thousands of ai applications. For example, the National EnergyTechnology Lab in morgantown, West Virginia supports the department of interior in using Artificial Intelligence to identify orphaned oil and gas wells. For the program, ai source resources by analyzing old land survey maps, permits, production records and eyewitness accounts to find well sites. During the 2020 three r d awards, which i am told is referred to as the oscars of innovation, doctorates dr. Rick stevens was recognized for his work using ai to accelerate the discovery of new Cancer Therapies and treatments that are highly personalized for individual patients. And our committee has recently played an Important Role in advancing does ai work. In recognizing the United States must not fall behind in the supercomputing race. We authorize the exoskeleton Computing Program of the department of energy and the 115 coffers. The frontier supercomputer at oak ridge allowed past exit scale, the ability to perform one billion calculations per scout calculations per second. That is a lot. The fastest supercomputer in the world. Before we authorize the program, china had the fastest computers. Now, the u. S. Has regained the lead. This supercomputer at oak ridge is already using ai to model the behavior of human cells to develop better treatments for alzheimers, opiate addiction and cancer. But the race is just beginning. Ai has the potential to add trillions of dollars into the World Economy each year. Governments and companies around the world are competing fiercely in the new markets. America must accelerate our efforts to compete and defend against china and ai. It is estimated that the annual chinese ai investments will reach over 26 billion by 2026. Which dwarfs the u. S. Government current spending of 3. 3 billion per year. Between 2015 and 2021, Chinese Ai Companies raised 110 billion, including 40. 2 billion from u. S. Investors about which i cannot believe and 251 ai companies. In 2017, china released their new Development Plan which includes r d and infrastructure targets for the u. S. Currently does not have a strategic ai plan like this. In addition to government spending, chinas workforce advantage is significant. It has twice as many stem phds and twice as many masters degree holders. China has created Artificial Intelligence programs in every one of their top universities. In regards to the exoskeleton program, this is a champion, the Chinese Government can be set to operate as many as 10 supercomputers by 2025. Xi jinping himself has pointed to our national lab network, calling them indispensable momentum for the development and innovation of science and technology. Soon, china may have their very own lab network. Last week, a Company Named baidu released a Chinese CommunistParty Approved ai language and model comparable to chatgpt. An app developed in the u. S. , which we have heard about. Bernie bought is the most downloaded in asia. The doe needs to do more Strategic Planning so that americans have confidence in key resources. We encourage other agencies to use resources and promote private sector partnerships with labs that develop safe commercial occupations of ai. We must also understand what additional investments are needed to spur leadership in Artificial Intelligence. Congress should focus on strengthening and expanding our existing programs rather than creating duplicate programs. We should also ensure our labs are able to responsibly recruit experts both from our country and globally. Much of americas ai expertise comes from immigrants who founded nearly half of the top startups in the u. S. International students earn 60 of our Computer Science doctorates. All the time, we must be sure the work includes safety requirements. We will not outcompete china in ai if they are able to just steal the technology funded by our taxpayer dollars for dollars. The chips and science act that Congress Passed features Research Improvements that are now currently being implement it by the department. However, Foreign Espionage is an evolving threat and we must remain vigilant. The United States must remain at the forefront of a new emerging technology and to the department of energy as a essential component of that. I look forward to hearing our witnesses perspectives on steps that apartment can take to ensure america is advancing ai in a competitive, responsible manner. I will turn to my friend for opening remarks. I appreciate your remarks because Artificial Intelligence is rapidly transforming the world. It is already impacting our daily lives. Artificial intelligence plays a role in the energy sector. Ai can reduce equipment downtime. Algorithms help minors locate rich deposits from works more efficient exploration. Realtime analytics strength and worker safety programs. Artificial intelligence helps pinpoint oil and gas reserves. Predictive models harness data to streamline operations and reduce costs. Ai centers also reinforce Pipeline Safety and efficiency. Artificial intelligence has great promise to expand our economy and strengthen our National Security. It also raises some welldocumented concerns. A recent study from the highlighted a significant and systemic leftwing bias in chatgpt platforms. It revealed a clear bias in favor of democrats. The same Program Favorite of the labour party and the United Kingdom and the Workers Party in brazil. We cant let political bias infiltrate the development of ai. This is particularly true when taxpayer dollars are helping fund the technology development. Innovation in emerging technologies can be a source of great strength. It can be a key advantage in our geopolitical competition. The department of energy has an Important Role in ai research. The department maintains the worlds most advanced computing systems. Its 70 National Labs have significant experience developing the nations most sensitive technologies. The peoples republic of china is watching nearly every move made at our National Labs. A recent report revealed that since 1987, the Chinese Communist party has targeted over 160 chinese resources working at our premier weapons lab. Upon returning to china, researchers helped advance key military technologies using knowledge financed by american taxpayers. In july of this year, senior fbi officials warned that china is targeting u. S. Businesses, universities and Government Research facilities. China is trying to get their hands on cutting edge American Research and technology. As of 2021, over 4000 chinese nationals still work at our nations National Labs. Many of these foreign nationals strive to advance innovation and do want to collaborate in good faith. They find themselves beholden to an authoritarian regime at home the party is relentless. Some chinese nationals will see no choice but to support the Chinese Communists through theft of research and technology. Their families back in china may suffer harsh consequences if they do not comply with their governments demands. Chinas sustained interest in our intellectual property is a stark reminder of the intense global competition surrounding Artificial Intelligence. This competition may drive advancements in the field. We cant overlook our threat to National Security posed by the Chinese Government. The department of energy in our National Labs must take the china threat more seriously. We cant let our Technology Fall into the hands of those in beijing. I look forward to hearing from our Witnesses Today on what additional steps Research Agencies and laboratories and universities they fund must take to prevent this theft of american technology. Sen. Manchin i would like to thank the witnesses for being here today. First of all, we are going to have david turk, deputy secretary of energy. We have dr. Rick stevens. Thank you for the great work. Director tentatively see, University Center for security and emerging technology. Andrew wheeler, Vice President at hewlettpackard enterprises. Thank you all. I will turn to secretary turk. We are going to begin with for opening remarks. Distinguished members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity. Opportunity to talk about activities in an our vision for Artificial Intelligence. Let me begin appropriately by thanking this committee. For years and years of strong, sustained report support that has led to becoming a an ai powerhouse. With your leadership, we have designed, developed and currently operates four of the top 10 fastest openly benchmarked supercomputers in the world. Including the worlds fastest frontier at oak ridge National Laboratory. We are the worlds first Capable Software ecosystem that is helping to drive breakthroughs, ai breakthroughs in critical areas as varied as material science, earthquake Risk Assessment, energy storage, i could go on and on. Across a network of 34 National User facilities around our country, doe generates tremendous volumes of highquality data. Literally the fuel that can lead to more ai breakthroughs. Most importantly, the National Laboratory system houses a workforce of over 70,000 scientists, engineers, support personnel with world leading expertise. It is a particular pleasure to be joined on this panel by professor rick stevens, who is one of those top experts as you mentioned. But as proud as we should all be about this robust ai foundation, now is the time to take these capabilities to the next level. Advancements in ai are enabling enormous progress that can help address key challenges of our time. We need to double down on that technical capability. The computers, the software, the data, the researchers, to make sure that we have those breakthroughs here in the u. S. And our private sector can benefit from that as well. Governments around the world are investing in ai capabilities as never report that she never before. Chinese investments are expected to reach 26 billion by 2026. We simply must be bold and move fast, or risk falling behind. Ai also lowers the bar for bad actors to do even worse things and to do them easier. Ai systems pose risks to individual safety, privacy, civil liberty. Information manipulation. Bias and discrimination. Bio threats, nuclear threats, chemical threats, all made easier by ai, potentially. An industry alone cannot only be fully aware of their threats because much of that information rightfully so falls within the purview of our Intelligence Community and our National Security enterprise. Doe can play an Important Role including developing methods for assessing and red teaming ai models to identify and mitigate the risks possessed presented by these cutting edge systems that are only improving incredibly quickly over the weeks and months ahead. Over five years, we worked with stakeholders across the ai ecosystem to identify new and rapidly emerging opportunities and challenges presented by ai. And to identify very specifically how unique doe capabilities, the strong foundations, thanks to this committee, how we can drive progress for ai Going Forward for the department of energy. This culminated in the may, 2023 release of a report called ai for science, energy and security. This blueprint aligned precisely the pressing need for scientific grounding in areas such as bio transparency and the impact of ai on jobs. We have translated this feedback into a specific proposal for your consideration called the frontiers in Artificial Intelligence for science, security and technology. This is exactly a Strategic Plan for the doe nested within a broader Strategic Vision for the u. S. And the u. S. Government. Ranking member, you rightfully point out there are Research Security issues and challenges we need to take headon and improve our systems and i regular basis. I want to thank our federal fellow panelist for her testimony and for all of her work, testimony we can improve on including our science and Technology Risk matrix, which i would be happy to get into. We look very forward to further discussing the fasts proposal. Everything we are doing and updating it based on our committee plus continued guidance and leadership. There is no doubt that with ai, we are now on the cusp of our next grand challenge the United States. Working within and outside the government, doe stands ready to step up to this moment, play our role in fully engaging in this grand challenge by utilizing our unique computing capacity of a well curated data sets, algorithms, relationships with industry and most importantly, our skills leading scientific workforce. All of us at the department of energy and our National Labs very much look forward to working with this Committee Committee to live up to this moment. Sen. Manchin now we go to dr. Stevens. Thank you ranking member. And members of the committee. For this opportunity. And todays discussion about National Labs and ai. I have worked on advanced computing for over 30 years at the university of chicago. Much of that time, i have been driven by this idea that we need to build intelligence into the future of computing. Over the last four years, i worked with my colleagues at all 17 labs in over 30 universities and dozens of companies to run a series of town Hall Meetings. Seven town Hall Meetings over four years that evolved over 1300 researchers. At these meetings, we challenged the community to think broadly about how advanced ai systems, going beyond what we can do today, could be developed and applied in doe mission spaces to accelerate development of Energy Technologies and improve National Security. What im going to tell you about right now is a little bit of those outcomes. The consensus is there is an enormous opportunity here to use ai to accelerate discovery in both basic science, accelerate the application of that in Energy Technologies and improve how we actually conduct all of our work in National Security. Some of these applications can range from new technologies for better batteries that require less rare earth minerals, which would improve Global Security, two new types of polymers that can be ideal for each application, but can be recycled indefinitely without losing performance. We think ai can help with that. We believe ai can be coupled with robotics to automate experimental science, improving input by orders of magnitude. It is so compelling that idea that some of my colleagues have formed this concept of ai driven science factories, selfdriving laboratories as a way to actually accelerate work in drug developing for cancer or new materials for semiconductors. Ai can also address key challenges in software development. Doe manages over one billion lines of code and we do not have enough developers, Senior Software developers to maintain that code and to porch that code into new machines. Ai can help with that problem. Ai systems appropriately trained can help us design not only software, but hardware for nextgeneration systems and help us build systems that can save a huge amount of energy. Ai systems are also being used to explore ways to control complex systems like fusion reactors. That same idea can be applied to control future power grids. Ai can also be used to accelerate scientific simulations by tradition replacing traditional methods in achieving speedups by factors of 100 or more from weather prediction to electronic structure computation that is used on over 30 of doe computers. The biggest opportunity is probably this idea of foundation models, the Underlying Technology behind chatgpt, and applying that to science. We are discovering that those types of technologies are incredibly versatile for doing scientific problems. They have been trained on millions of papers im a vastly more acknowledged than traditional scientists could use in their lifetime and could synthesize knowledge. New lines of attack on open problems and so forth. In short, and surprise to many, Current Foundation models have demonstrated an unusual utility in science. Maybe a decade earlier than we thought. That is one of the most dramatic opportunities and challenges. Because these models can directly affect productivity today and we do not have a strategy across the department for aggressively using this, it is a big opportunity and also a challenge. Ai in all of its forms is rapidly becoming the most important tool in the scientific and technical toolbox. And as a result of these workshops and the progress over the last five years, i believe its imperative that the us lead the world in the development of advanced ai systems for scientific and National Security applications. I believe doe is the only agency that can do this, that has all the resources under one roof. Of course, its going to be a partnership with private industry to do this. And with our academic colleagues, i believe we should commit over the next decade to building the most powerful advanced ai capability for science, energy and National Security. Some might call it an artificial general intelligence for science or perhaps a super intelligence for science. It could have many names. But the goal is to go dramatically beyond where we are today in a secure fashion in a reliable fashion. Whoever leads the world in ai for science will lead the world in scientific discovery and have a head start in the translation of those discoveries into products that expand our economy and address modern needs. And in doing that, we will secure what i call the innovation frontier. By a i, whoever leads the world in the development of ai for energy will lead the world in developing and deploying next generation Energy Technology such as modular reactors that can be safe and deployed anywhere at moments of notice or super super efficient combustion systems to take maximum advantage of our resources and scalable approaches to Carbon Sequestration which we desperately need and better and more effective strategies for say electrification of the economy. And by doing that, we will secure the energy and climate frontier. And finally, whoever leads the world in understanding and mitigating the risks of ai and the use of a i to improve national and Global Security will determine the landscape in which we and our allies will live and work in the future, securing our lifestyles and our prosperity. Thank you for your time and i really look forward to the questions. Thank you, doctor stevens and now we will have miss puga. Am i saying that right . Im so sorry about that. Thank you uh chairman manchin, ranking member, barrasso, distinguished members of the committee and staff and thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to participate in todays hearing. Its an honor to be here alongside the esteemed experts on this panel. Im currently the senior fellow at the center for security and emerging technology at georgetown university. I previously served as the National Counterintelligence officer for east asia and ive studied chinas snt development and Tech Acquisition strategy for most of my career. My testimony today will focus will first address why china targets the doe labs provide a brief overview of chinas snt system and finally discuss potential mitigation strategies. I will also offer Lessons Learned which include this is not a doe problem but a us wide problem because chinas system is not the same as ours. China takes a holistic approach to developing technology, blurring the lines between public, private, civilian and military. Our policies and mitigation strategies need to reflect this reality. Beijing in many ways, understands our societal tensions and its state craft is directed at them exploring exploiting identity politics by promoting any changes in us policy as ethnic profiling. Its because of this last point that i want to acknowledge how difficult and challenging these issues can be. My own grandparents were immigrants who came to this country with little formal education and worked menial jobs. My presence here today is a testament to the american dream, but it is because theres no room for xenophobia or ethnic profiling in the us. It goes against everything we stand for as a nation. And precisely because of these values, we must move forward to find principled ways to mitigate the policies of a nation state that is ever more authoritarian and seeks to undermine the global norms of science and the importance of science is why china targets the due labs, emerging technologies as weve heard such as ai biotechnology new materials and green tech are increasingly at the center of global competition. The doe labs because of their mission is in the crosshairs. While many are familiar with the does mission in regards to stewarding our nuclear deterrent, it also plays an essential role in emerging technologies and research and is essentially a window into the priorities of the Us Government. And i have to say doe is really an underappreciated resource. Well, china is not the only country that targets Us Technology and the doe complex. Chinas efforts are complex and multifaceted and part of a state sponsored state sponsored strategy to save time money and advance its strategic goals specifically in these emerging technology areas. My written testimony goes into more details on the policies, programs and infrastructure that support these development efforts. Chinas legal system also complicates collaborations with the due complex because its laws compel its citizens to share information and data with chinese entities if asked regardless of the restrictions placed on that data and more importantly, who owns it. I have also provided these in my written testimony. Moving forward, we need to consider the following. We need to have policies for the china. We have not the china we want. Most policy measures to date have been tactical and not designed to counter an entire system that is structurally different than our own. Its essential that the United States and other liberal democracies, democracies invest in the future. Weve heard about the great promise of these technologies, but we must build Research Security into those funding programs. From the start existing policies and laws are insufficient to address the level of influence that the ccp exerts in our society, especially in academia and research, increased reporting requirements for foreign money in our academic and Research Institutes and clear reporting requirements and rules on participation in foreign Talent Programs are a good start. We also have to ensure true reciprocity in our collaborations for too long. Weve looked the other way when china has not followed through on the details of the s and t agreements, theres been no repercussions for that for not sharing data, providing access to its facilities and obfuscating the true affiliations of its scientists. However, want to caution extreme policy reactions such as closing our eyes and doing nothing or closing our doors only really benefit china. The latter by discrediting and mass all efforts to address the problem and by depriving ourselves of the great contributions of foreign born scientists. In conclusion, what will also make this difficult is that the reality that china is presenting is inconvenient in the short term. This includes Companies Looking for short term profits, academics that benefit personally from funding for their laboratories and former government officials who cash in as lobbyists for chinas state owned or state supported companies. I want to thank the committee again for continuing to discuss this issue. These are hard conversations that we as a nation must have if we want to protect and promote us competitiveness, future developments and our values. So, thank you very much. Thank you. And now we have mr. Wheeler. Chairman manchin, ranking member, barrasso and distinguished members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today and thank you for this committees support for the scale Computing Initiative. My name is Andrew Wheeler and i lead advanced development in High Performance computing and Artificial Intelligence and serve as the director of Hewlett Packard labs, the central applied Research Group for Hewlett Packard enterprise. While we trace our roots back to the original Hewlett Packard company. As many of you know, Hewlett Packard enterprise was formed as a new publicly traded company in november of 2015. At h pe. We fundamentally believe that a i will have as significant an impact on our lives as any technology to date training. The largest a i models is a supercomputing problem. And at h pe, we will build the worlds best supercomputers with our partners at the department of energy. We co design and co build supercomputers that target complex scientific engineering and data intensive workloads. These include systems at sandia and Los Alamos National laboratories in new mexico, the National RenewableEnergy Laboratory in colorado and the National EnergyTechnology Laboratory in morgantown, West Virginia. Our National Investments in supercomputing have far reaching benefits across the federal government. For example, our innovations in Computing Power, power and density that we provide to the doe are also being used across the department of defense in the Intelligence Community. And at the National OceanicAtmospheric Administration to forecast weather. And at the National Science foundation centers. In fact, during the early stages of the covid19 outbreak, the National Labs including argon and Lawrence Livermore used their supercomputers to accelerate a path to treatment to combat the disease using Detailed Digital simulations toyze a vast set of drug candidates. Researchers at Lawrence Livermore narrowed down the number of potential antibody candidates from an initial set of 100 duo decillion. Thats a one with 40 zeros after it to just 20 the labs researchers accomplished this in weeks compared to the years it would take using other approaches. In 2016 hp was proud to be chosen as a key partner in the does exo scale Computing Initiative which was designed to accelerate the Research Development acquisition and deployment of new technologies to deliver exo scale computing and to usher in a new era of supercomputing speed and capabilities. Then in may of 2022 h pe is part of a Public Private partnership with oak ridge, achieved exo scale computing with a computer that is more powerful than the worlds next four fastest systems combined to put exo scale into context. The human brain can perform about one simple mathematical operation per second. An exo scale computer can do at least one quintillion which is 1 billion times a billion calculations. In the same amount of time, the success of exo scale the exo scale Computing Initiative restored the us position as having the worlds most powerful computer and also marked the creation of the Worlds Largest a i system which will soon be joined by systems installed at argon and Lawrence Livermore. The exo scale Computing Initiative was a model of success. Congress made the right investments. Our National Labs challenged Americas Technology industry and at h pe, we rose to the challenge in conclusion, while the United States has regained its rightful role as the world leader in supercomputing now is not the time to rest on our laurels. The doe National Labs are producing results that researchers could only have dreamed of just a few years ago. Continued investment in this Successful Partnership is in our National Economic and security interests and hp looks forward to working with the Us Government to continue our global leadership. Thank you. Thank you. Now, ill begin with our questioning. My first question will um go to uh uh secretary turk and doctor stevens. Uh and uh mr wheeler, my testimony, i mentioned a study about the how a i was used to provide a clear and detailed steps to create a pandemic or bio weapon. The labs are uniquely positioned to do extensive work in detecting and mitigating emerging technological threats related to an array of biotechnologies and Nuclear Security. So mr turk and dr stevens, what can the department and the labs do to address the safety and security concerns . Well, thanks for the question. Youre right to raise this as an issue in the mit study that you referenced and put into the, uh, put into the record is one of those thats a real eye opener. It should be, especially for those who dont deal with these issues on a daily basis. So weve got a real challenge here as professor stevens. Others have pointed out a, i can do a lot of good, but it can do a lot of harm here, right. And it allows actors who arent as sophisticated, scientifically or technologically to do certain things that could have huge, huge harm. So, from the doe side, i think weve got some ability to be incredibly helpful, working with others. Department of defense. Hhs others as well. Weve got to remember our National Labs dont just work for the department of energy. They work for all the other agencies and a lot of other agencies already have a lot of programs including in the bio defense and biotech area. We also at the department of uh energy, know how to deal with classified information. Weve got our own intelligence and thats incredibly important here as well. So were not just relying on whats in the open record, but we have the best uh of whats going on uh from a scientific and certainly from an intel uh perspective overview. What im really, what im trying to get to is the basic i look back and we all remember when the uh internet uh was uh coming on board and it came basically born out of the labs. And then by the 19 nineties, early nineties, we did do something we created section 2 30 thinking we would let it develop and be all it could be. We look back, its even more than what we thought it could be. And its been used very effectively to help economies and help people all over the world. But its been used very detrimentally too. So were trying to not create that same environment here with a i, thats what were looking at. So what you saw just with the, with the mit students could do in one hour. Uh its, its alarming and ive, ive advised some of my colleagues about this. What im gonna do is what can you do to stop Something Like that . And what kind of guard rails maybe doctor steven, i have something to come back to you, mr turk. Anyway, about doctor stevens, you wanna Say Something on that . I was just gonna say this is exactly why we need to invest in these capabilities, right . I mean, we need to be ahead of the curve and professor stevens can certainly get into that more. Let me just try to outline quickly how we would approach that problem. So of course, doe is working with nis on a thing called the a i Risk Management framework, which is largely currently envisioned as a process that uses humans to evaluate the trustworthiness and the alignment that is whether a model does something that you like it to do or something that you dont want it to do. I think the key thing here, theres actually two key problems that we have to solve. One is we have to have the ability to assess the risks in current models at scale. There are over 100 Large Language Models in circulation in china, there is more than 1000 in circulation in the usa manual process for evaluating that is not going to scale. So were going to have to build capabilities using the kind of supercomputers we have and even additional ai systems to assess other ai systems. So we can say this model is safe, it doesnt know how to build a pandemic or it wont help students do something risky. Thats one thing we have to do. The second thing we have to do is we have to understand the fundamental issue of alignment, whats called alignment that is building these models that align with human values and are reliable in aligning with human values. And thats a fundamental research task. Its not something that we can just snap our fingers and say we know how to do it. We dont know how to do it, companies dont know how to do it. Labs dont know how to do it. Universities dont know how to do it. Thats one of the goals that wed have to have in a Research Program like this. So we need scale the ability tos and evaluate risk in current models and future models. And we need fundamental r and d on alignment and ai safety. But this is rapidly, i mean, its growing so quickly and, and and expanding toward a i, we heard about it and coming at you from our standpoint to where we are today and to have a class study and these were non scientist to students to be able to get this in. How can we put that back in, back in the box . I dont think we can put it back in the box. I think were gonna be, we have to get smarter about how we manage the risks associated with advanced a i systems. And using the term that people are using quite a lot of eyes wide open. Theres no putting pandora back in the box, right . Every person within the next few years is going to have a very powerful ai assistant in their pocket to do whatever it is that they can get that assistant to help them to do. Hopefully, most of that will be positive advances for society and so on. Some of that will be negative, weve got to be able to understand how to reduce that negative element, detect it when it happens and mitigate it either through laws or through other means, technical means before something dramatically bad happens. And i think that needs to be part of the technical agenda for the labs and quite frankly, across the federal government. Im going to take the liberty of having seven minute rounds. So if you want to set that for seven minutes, do you want to speak on this at all . Do you have any comments coming from the institutional . Sure. I think uh thats also important as we look at the a i as a tool of discovery. And in some ways you could say that the study that um the classroom did was a discovery um that there are a lot of steps though that they really, that need to happen from the time you go from a sequence into something that um can really have a large scale damage that is talked about. And so thats one of the things that we are actually taking a closer look at is having the sequence is one thing, but then what are those follow on steps . And so thats something that uh theres still a lot of, oh, sorry, what, what biology has to go on in between that, i guess in a nutshell, you like to put any guard rails on . Have we missed it . Not entirely, i think its right, there are many layers to this. Theres both a policy uh aspect to this as well as, you know, kind of a, a research component. But as an example on the policy like our own company, right, we spent over a year and a half developing what we call our a i ethics principles. And this is all about, you know, getting our, you know, thousands of engineers and users, you know, go through training around. Ok. What does it mean to, you know, use a i in our product developments, you know, how are we going to Deploy Solutions that, that um you know, harness a i and, and now that cant solve every problem because as, as you mentioned, there are bad actors that, you know, maybe wont follow that, that same line of, of reasoning. And thats where i think the, the research and investment comes in into play. Theres uh you know, a broad film of study around this trustworthy a i which ultimately can provide some of those guard rails youre asking about, but were still really in the early days of, of some of that and deploying some of those solutions and theres, theres a lot of work thats left. Thank you. Thanks mr chairman. Just a couple of things. I mean, you are an expert on chinese science and Technology Policy, you very well outlined to us in your opening statement, the threats that china poses to government funded research as well as private sector development. So we have more than 4000 chinese nationals working in the department of energy labs. Are these employees vulnerable to the Chinese Communist party, their talent Recruitment Programs . How does that work . Great. Thank you. The talent Recruitment Programs really do pose quite a challenge based on the principles um that a lot of these individuals when they sign these contracts, uh often obfuscate their uh participation. But i think as i mentioned in my opening statement, its really important as we go forward that we acknowledge the policies and programs that china has put in place and really focus on how the system, our system and their system is different. And thats why its important to talk about the human rights issues and the kinds of pressure that the Chinese Government can bring to bear on individuals, especially as you had mentioned in your opening statement, whose families are still in china. Now, i think its a really delicate balance. And so some of these reporting programs um and also just following up on different affiliations and thinking through, i think the risk matrix is one of those tools that can be very useful because all research doesnt have the same amount of risk, right . And so its important to not have a one size fits all approach to this. But it also highlights the importance of really investing in homegrown talent as well. Thank you. So, so mr kirk, more than a year ago, i wrote to the Department Uh and uh regarding the persistent threat of the Chinese Foreign nationals when doing research on Sensitive Technology in our labs, a copy of the letter um i brought to the attention that 162 chinese nationals who actually stole Sensitive Research material from los alamos in the lab. Your department answered the letter but really didnt answer my question. So let me, let me ask the question to you. Does the benefit of the work of the Chinese Foreign nationals within our labs outweigh the documented risks to both our research and our National Security. Let me first, thank you for all your focus on this issue. Thanks to others who have focused their careers here. The testimony as i said in my opening was incredibly useful just to eyes wide open right . Heres the threat, heres what we face and how do we deal with it and get the balance, right . So three things maybe just to point out and happy to get into this in any detail, one, we do have specific restrictions so you cant work at ad ue lab if youve done a talent Recruitment Program and to make sure that weve got that prohibition and those restrictions in place and trying to really think about not just whats called a talent Recruitment Program, but other ways that the Chinese Government or others can get around that as well so that weve got that eyes wide open on those specific prohibitions. Secondly, as was mentioned, weve got the science and Technology Risk matrix. This is going beyond whats under export control or whats under classification and making sure were looking at technologies. Doing a ranking of where are the most sensitive technologies a i is one of the six Sensitive Technology areas that we have a particular focus on in this risk matrix and make sure that for those very sensitive applications, we have extra protections. So its a risk based model along those lines. Third, we do have a counterintelligence unit at the department of energy and all of our field offices cover all of our labs. So we are actively investigating and making sure that were following up on any leads so that we can be as thoughtful and proactive as we possibly can. There is a balance here just as you said. Its a great part of our apparatus that we have folks from all over the world who want to come work here, right . Leading Scientific Minds who you think of albert einstein, you think of a number of others who benefited our country immensely and we want to take advantage of that, especially where appropriate with open science, with areas that are fruitful for that kind of kind of focus as well. Its also useful to note. Ive got one statistic here. Many of the folks who come here to work in the us including in our labs end up staying and becoming incredibly important parts of our ecosystem. So over 90 of top a i phd students from around the world stay here in the us five years after graduating. And that is a huge benefit but looking forward to working with you further. I appreciate because the good news is 90 come and stay. And then the concern is that theres potentially 10 do return to china. Or have families there as youve mentioned . Eyes wide open to take those threats to head on. Doctor stevens. I dont know if theres something you want to add on this, but im interested in how our foreign nationals from countries of concern, how theyre vetted before theyre hired in your lab. Theres a process thats actually quite similar across all the laboratories where theres a background check there as theres the filters that uh secretary uh turk mentioned in terms of Recruitment Programs and their history. Theres a famous form i think 4 93 we call it that uh foreign nationals have to fill out. Theres um so its a long process to get hired and get cleared and, and not just to be hired, but even to come as a visitor and to participate in, in user facilities. So i think labs do a quite good job of, of uh screening this. And they make very valuable contributions. One statistic that may be, i maybe mentioned that over 60 of the Computer Science graduate students in the us are foreign born and the workforce component that we need to build advanced a i systems will not function if we prohibit uh those students from participating in this ecosystem. So were going to need to really accelerate our Workforce Development and foreign more participants are an important component of that. So the follow up to then to mr wheeler. So given the Global Nature of the technology development, how does your organization navigate the challenges of International Collaboration while ensuring the security and the integrity of the Research Come across . Thank you. There we go. Sorry. Much like the National Labs. We have a very um you know, uh process for how we on board talent as well. We also have, you know, ongoing training and uh that, thats mandatory uh its around global trade. And so its very specific, everyone gets trained around. Uh you know, what are the regulations around . How do you interact if um you know, whether its a collaboration opportunity with uh with, with anyone abroad honestly. And so we have very strict control that, that manages what kind of technology can be transferred, who we work with so very tight guidelines there. And then above and beyond that, for the projects were involved in specifically, you know, this is obviously closer to the department of defense. But, you know, if its a project that requires, you know, only cleared personnel, we have that, that ability, we have the ability to do, you know, secure manufacturing. So, um so weve got uh a lot of steps in terms of security and who we work with and then how the work ultimately gets done. Thank you, mr chairman, senator orona. Thank you, mr chairman. So weve heard from all of you that uh uh the Chinese Government has a uh uh a systemic Systematic Campaign of stealing american intelligence, uh intellectual property to advance their economy and that our doe labs are targeted for this kind of effort. But um i want to point out as, as some of you have pointed out that the sensitivities involved and the balance that is required. So it is important to deter Chinese Government wrongdoing and prosecute espionage and theft. But our concern is about the Chinese Governments actions, not Chinese People and we must avoid misguided prosecutions such as what was undertaken by the Justice Department and the Previous Administration with their China Initiative going after researchers on shoddy evidence will hurt, not help American Innovation by sending the best minds elsewhere. So listening to some of the responses that youve provided already on this subject for secretary mr turk. Uh you say that we are um Going Forward with eyes wide open and we have some proactive steps that the doe has taken. So, uh do you consider these steps to be adequate to protect us from the kind of intellectual property espionage engaged by entities such as china and uh perhaps russia iran . Well, youre right to say its not just china, theres others as well. Of course, russia iran, north korea, et cetera. And i think the short answer and the honest answer is we always need to do more. The threat is evolving and we need to evolve our responses accordingly, which is why i mentioned this risk matrix. We are annually updating that risk matrix now so that we make sure that we are updating in terms of what technologies we consider sensitive, what protocols we have in place. We have a Standing Group now made up of folks from throughout the labs and doe headquarters to take a look and continually provide ideas to the secretary myself so that we can continually improve. So we just need to improve on a regular basis on a continual basis. And as you say, rightly get that balance right . Because with the China Initiative, i would say that we did not get the balance right. And in fact, the message to the Chinese Community and the a api community was that heres our government targeting, um targeting these people. And it created an environment where uh aanhp i people were targeted for various kinds of, of, of um uh abuse to say the least for mr stevens in the wake of the devastating fire on maui. Residents have been subject to disinformation on social media, likely coordinated by foreign governments, governmental entities and generated with a i to discourage residents from reaching out to fema for Disaster Assistance and to sow distrust in the federal government. Are you aware that this happened in the wake of the maui disaster . Yes. So you know, at this point, with more uh more of these kinds of natural disasters occurring with much more devastating results. We can expect that there will be probably these kinds of misinformation to sow distrust in our own government. So how can we use ar or the tools to rapidly detect and counter such efforts to spread disinformation especially in emergencies or following disasters . So i think we have to take several steps. One is to have advanced systems for detection of synthetic or deep fake information, right . Nontrue information that gets disseminated. We should uphold the existing laws that prevent that kind of information legally from being disseminated through social media channels. We need to enforce water marking this technique of putting secret information in a i generated output so we can detect when its generated by a i. And we need to make headway on water marking official sources. That is official news that comes from governments or from responsible parties so that it can be detected automatically that that is true and correct information coming out, distinguish it from misinformation is generated by a i. So theres a multiple layer layered approach to protecting the citizens, citizens from disinformation and we have to do all of those things. Do you think mr secretary turk that we already have these kinds of systems in place . Because as i mentioned, these kinds of natural disasters are occurring more frequently with more devastating results. You cant have all this misinformation out there stopping people from accessing the very kind of help that they need. Do we have these kinds of counter systems already in place . So honestly, we have some of them in place, not just the department of energy but others across the government, but not as much as we need to. Absolutely. And what professor stevens i think is exactly right. We need a layered approach and we need to continually update and improve that and frankly have the capabilities like were talking about in this fast proposal in the Us Government so that we can do the kinds of monitoring, we can do the kinds of analysis that allows us not only the department of energy but others across the government to have the information and the tools to do the water marking and other other mitigation efforts. Do the other two Panel Members want to weigh in on this concern that we have following disasters that there are entities such as russia that are spreading misinformation to people who are already in great pain. No . You agree that we need to put in place ways that we can counter this kind of misinformation, right . I think the challenge of, of misinformation with these tools. As i mentioned in my testimony that my written testimony uh with the recent uh reports about what was happening with facebook and other kinds of social media. Um we see misinformation across a wide range of topic areas um from the natural disasters to as i mentioned in my opening statement, um all kinds of activities that the Us Government are either doing or putting in place. So i think its, its a growing issue. Yes, i want to note that in the case of maui, the family of federal agencies were there over 25 or so agencies with over 1000 personnel and yet there was all this uh this, this information, this information out there saying that the response was lacking. And so this kind of sowing of mistrust by i say russia was a big actor in this instance. For once again, for mr stevens, i just want to note that um your testimony highlighted some of the ways that ai can provide breathtaking opportunities for technological innovation. But what are a and the other doe National Labs doing to ensure that the technologies you are helping to develop are accessible to Small Businesses to help them innovate. So were very concerned about the availability of Small Businesses and students and so on. To learn about a i and to use ai, i think this concept is often called democratization of access. The different labs have different programs to make access to our computing facilities and a i models that we produce that we, that are open, that are safe and secure, available to those communities. And we provide help for those communities, whether its, whether its Small Businesses or whether its local governments to gain access to our systems, to do that. And i think its an ongoing effort. I think that more needs to be done there. And i think, do we working in concert with other agencies, particularly nsf via Something Like the Na Initiative could actually make a big impact on that. And its something that we should do together. Thank you. Thank you, mr chairman. Thank you, senator. Now we have senator murkowski. Thank you mr chairman and thank you for this hearing this morning. Obviously a very, very timely topic um as was just alluded to in uh senator hirono question there is theres a lot of good that uh that we can gain from a i and and as scary, i think as it is in so many different areas, i think its important not to lose sight that when, when utilized correctly, it can truly be transformational. Secretary turk, as were looking to different applications um for, for, for good uh within a i uh technologies and a i work flows. We talk a lot here um in this committee and weve been talking a lot about things like permitting form. Something that has proven to be tediously long and uh involving multi layers of, of government processes. Do, do you see application for um being able to streamline some internal government processes so that we can reduce the time, for instance, uh that it might take for an agency to deliver on a permit or, or to really just kind of process any paperwork reduce workloads. How do you see this being utilized for the good . I think the short answer is absolutely, were sitting on a treasure trove of data from previous applicants for different permits out there. If we can harness that data with algorithms with a i, we can shrink the timelines with permitting, we can take advantage of that data in a way that allows us to do what we need to do is build out our electricity infrastructure, our transmission, other kinds of infrastructure that we need in our country. So theres no doubt in my mind, theres an awful lot of good that can happen in the energy space including accelerating, accelerating on the permitting side. Weve got a lot of Renewables Coming into the grid. Weve got to balance all of that a i can be incredibly helpful with the power and the data that it has available. So you, youve had an opportunity uh a couple of opportunities to come to alaska, you, you have been read in very well um as to many of the unique aspects. And unfortunately, one of the unique aspects that we have um is sometimes we have a lack of data. We just havent done the mapping, we havent done the review, the analysis. And, and so we know that with, with a i, your, your output is just as good as your, your input. And if you have these holes um uh in, in that it, it can be a concern in itself. So how can again, how can we utilize the, the benefits of a i um in government processes for good while ensuring that perhaps some states, some areas like like alaska where data is just not complete um that theyre not actually disadvantaged. Have you given thought to that . Yeah, absolutely. And let me say what its a pleasure. Its been to work with you and your staff and i have had a chance to not only come up to alaska and go to anchorage, but also to get out there to nome and other areas and really hear from folks in terms of what we can do from the department of energy to try to be helpful in that space. But i think you raise an incredibly important point. A i is only as good as the data that you feed into it. And if you dont have the data, it cant be the powerful tool for good that you just highlighted on that front. So i think its a continuing effort on our part and eager to work with you in our Arctic Energy office to make sure that we are doing everything we can from the department of energy, working with others in the federal government to make the investment so that we have that Data Available so that it can be feeding into these a i models. So its an ongoing effort. Were trying to make sure that were bringing that in to everything that we do, but its an ongoing effort and something that well continue working on. Well, we do need to Work Together on it and as we identify, i spend a fair amount of my time on the appropriation side with the department of interior budget. And recognize that were still directing a lot of resources, federal resources to just basic mapping, just basic mapping. So weve got a long ways to go there. Department of interior about a month ago, the ig for uh interior Mark Greenblatt um noted in an op ed in the Washington Post that there had been an inspection undertaken by his office and they were able to use a simple tool to crack more than 18,000 or 21 of the documents passwords and this included Senior Department officials, hundreds belonging to employees with elevated privileges. More than 14 of these passwords were cracked within the 1st 90 minutes of testing. And he noted that his office was able to do this by spending less than 15,000 that should alarm all of us. Probably a general question. I hope you answer yes, but we, we, we understand what happens or happened at interior is department of energy. Any better prepared to ward off nefarious actors than we saw at do i. So were trying to continually improve. One of the things that makes me most nervous and youre right to point out the benefits of a i. But one of the Biggest Challenges and the technology is only improving and improving, it makes it easier for less sophisticated actors to do more sophisticated kinds of attacks, whether its Cyber Security or any number of other things, biohazards, even Nuclear Proliferation efforts as well. And so weve got to take that head on. Thats why we need to make the investments in the Us Government. So we can detect these kinds of things. We can be ahead of the curve as much as we possibly can. But this is something we need to keep working on day in and day out, whether its the interior department, the department of energy or private Sector Companies as well. And this is, this should be a wake up call the pandoras box is open. We now need to deal with it and we need to take these kinds of emerging a i challenges head on and were not there, were not there where we need to be, we need to make the investments, we need to keep working at this. This is why we wanted to put together a proposal, our fast proposal with our ideas of what we think we need to do to try to do what we can from the department of energy side and again, have the back and forth with you with others here in congress to make sure that we are as prepared as we possibly can be. But weve got work to do. We have work to do. My fear is what we saw within department of interior is just 1 department of 12 and where the vulnerabilities may be a little bit different, but the impact uh can be equally huge, equally disastrous. Mr chairman. Thank you. Thank you. Now we have senator cortez masto. Thank you, mr chairman. Thank you to the panelists for this great conversation. Let me start with um uh the deputy secretary turk um because uh in nevada, uh we have and, and i want to thank also um hewlett packer. They were part of this. We have been having some red team hacking going on at some of our universities to really assess what is happening here. And let me address what everybody has talked about the nefarious actors, the concerns here that a i systems can be tricked into providing instruction for causing physical harm. Weve talked about that we need to address it. I think we need to as well. Red team hacking weekends are just as important. Thats the manual piece of it. I think dr stevens you talked about that we need to continue and let me just highlight because i know this weekend in particular that i am talking about in august in las vegas, it was designed around the white houses office of science and Technology Policy blueprint for a i bill of rights and its a competition that happens regularly. But my question here is one. Yes, that needs to continue two though. It also is building our Cyber Workforce. Is that right . That, thats whats key to this as well is that we need to have more engagement in building that workforce. I am proud that uh unlv was the host of this and will continue to be the host of these types of hacking exercises. But it also is part of this idea that we have to create these Academic Centers of excellence and cyber defense, which un lv is a number of colleges are. And i think many of you are participating in those exercises. So i guess my question for you, deputy secretary turk is, what else should we be doing to build out that workforce . I know theres work going on right now. Can you talk a little bit about the National Cyber workforce and education strategy . How does that fit in to what is, what we are trying to achieve with developing that Cyber Workforce . And what else do we need to be here in congress to support it . So the workforce piece is absolutely indispensable. And i think theres a number of ways we need to come at it. We need to have a comprehensive and coherent strategy to it. First of all, if you want to have top talent come into the government for all the functions that we need to serve, youve got to have the cutting edge facilities and capabilities, right . The fact that we have the Worlds Largest supercomputer is a pretty nice attractor for some of the top talent wanting to do cutting edge applications along those lines. Weve got the data, weve got the other pieces as well. So we have to have that infrastructure thats attractive for that top talent. The private sector is going to be able to pay folks an awful lot more than the government, even if we have bonuses and other kinds of attractive options, which were trying to do. Having the national Lab Apparatus gives us greater flexibility, candidly than if they were all federal government officials in the Civil Servant kind of sense. And so i think. And professor stevens can certainly talk about that. Using those partnerships, Argon National lab has a partnership with the university of chicago cutting Edge University there that helps in incredibly important ways to try to channel as much folks as we can into the sector. But i think theres no way we have a successful a strategy as a government as a country unless we have the workforce and the pipelines for the workforce, making sure that weve got that capability, not just in the private sector, incredibly important, but in the government for all the functions that we need to have here. And as were building out that workforce, and im gonna ask Hewlett Packard if you can because i know you are part of this and, and you have a Hewlett Packard has a future of work academy for community and technical colleges and theyre involved with nearly i, i wanna say 100 institutions um and over 500 students, it so the private sector is engaged. Correct. Absolutely. In fact, im glad you even mentioned the centers of excellence because what weve found over, you know, the years, honestly, decades is um you know, that, that really is the best practice for, you know, once you have uh you know, a center with, with, with maybe the compute capability, but you bring together, you know, those domain experts that are local to that institution. You know, you bring the universities that are local there there as well. And it really does, you allow, allow you to develop that local workforce. And as we think about a i and needing more and more of that expertise, its a great best practice to again help develop that workforce locally and, and just, you know, kind of grow and innovate together. And this is the opportunity and maybe doctor su ask you to talk about this because it is so hard for us in congress to come back in and overlay a framework and then actually try to develop values and principles in that framework. And this is an opportunity as we are building out that Cyber Workforce to grow those values and principles around a i is that, is that the goal here when we develop the curriculum . Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the as a i becomes more powerful, as already been mentioned, it, it, it does two things, it for somebody who knows how knows something, it empowers them to do more, right . So whether thats somebody whos defending our systems from a Cyber Security standpoint, it allows them to be more powerful to affect more systems, to be smarter about how they can do defense. But it also empowers the other side to be more aggressive in how they might attack systems. And we need to to of course win those battles and we have to create a community and a new way of thinking. And a i enabled Cyber Strategy and i think thats what we have to start teaching. And of course, its very attractive to the students. When you, when you talk about Cyber Security, theyre already interested, but then you bring a i into it, theyre super interested. So i think we have a big opportunity to bring more people into the workforce on this by attaching it to a i agenda. And thats really an essential part of the workforce in the future competition. And i might add that. Weve spent a lot of focus on looking at that phd level or Higher Education level. Its really what does it take to have that technically proficient that doesnt necessarily need a degree or need a advanced degree. And i would adventure to say that its really important to start and begin that at the k through 12 level. And really lay that ground work um because that is really what its gonna take to compete. And that appears to me what is happening with what, what i see with the different competition, the different, whether its the, the federal government, state or, or private sector, thats the correct. And actually, um has done a lot of work um around those topics and the um importance of competitions um as well as looking at the demographics of that workforce. So we thank you, make sure that you have that. Thank you. Thank you, mr chairman. Thank you. If we could, ill tell you we have votes, two votes at 11 45. We can keep our questions. Uh, i know we went to seven. Well go back to five minutes if we can. If you need a little bit longer, fine, you can stay closer to five. Itd be great. Senator haley. Thank you, mr chairman, uh mr turk. Since i have you before me. The last time we talked, we talked about the radioactive contamination that the federal government had delivered to the saint louis and Saint Charles regions of my state. And in particular, we talked about Jana Elementary School in the greater st louis region, which was then and is now currently closed because of Nuclear Contamination that private tests found were in the school. Now, when we visited last, this was in february, you told me that you were having conversations about it. Im just looking at the transcript here. You said i asked you about the, the letter from the Hazelwood School district to the department of energy requesting additional testing. You said ive seen their letter, weve talked about it. You said were having conversations including with the army corps. You said again, were having conversations with the army corps. When i asked you what youre gonna do, you said ill talk to the team. So thats been multiple months ago. Why dont you give me an update . What is the department of energy doing . Yeah, happy to do so. And we have a response letter to your most recent letter ive read it should be coming today or tomorrow that i was, i think you sent one yesterday, another one as well. Theres two and theres a second one that should be coming today or tomorrow that i spent some time with the team reviewing and making sure were trying to be as responsive as we possibly could on that front. The secretary and myself, the head of our Legacy Management team, carmelo um is working with the army corps and others uh on this front and, uh on the testing side, in particular, uh ive pushed the team several times. I said, what can we do is theres nothing we can do from the department of energy side. And what we can do is work with the army corps. And were happy to be very active with the army corps and make sure that theyre doing under their authority. Foods rap, gave the authority for these clean up sites to the army corps. Were playing more of a supporting role, but were happy to not only play that supporting role but to try to push and work with our interagency partners to be responsive. Certainly to listen to the concerns that youve expressed the concerns of the community. Its a horrific situation. Im a parent, ive got three kids. If this was happening in my school, i would be certainly nervous if i was a school a few miles away, id be nervous as well. So, theres an awful lot that we need to do, not just on the science, but also on the Human Element as well. And thank you for all your focus on this very important issue. Well, when you say that youre happy to, to do it, to do xyz to work with the army corps, are you doing it . We are having, we are having active conversations with the army corps. Thats what you said in february. Well, its for them because its under foods rap for them to make the decisions about where they think its appropriate to do additional testing. Uh, weve had active conversations. Uh, we are having conversations about what more they are doing right now and they are doing more right now. I will let them talk to you about, uh, other testing. Im aware of what theyre doing. Listen. Let, let, let me tell you what, what the situation is. Just a few days ago, the army corps reported that theyve removed 301 truck loads, 301 truck loads of radioactive dirt from the bank of the creek. Thats right near the Elementary School. Now, this comes after they said for months that there was no contamination anywhere near the Elementary School. Thats what they said to the community. Thats what they said to the parents. Thats what they said to the school. District and they said they wouldnt do any more testing. It was your responsibility to do the additional testing, you said no, its not. Its, its their responsibility. So currently nobodys doing anything more additionally and this isnt just a few months. Mr turk, this is 70 years since 1949 there has been contamination, radioactive contamination in the water in the soil all over the st louis region. Thats a heck of a long time. And for 70 years, what we now know weve discovered even since you and i talked last because of the efforts of st louis residents who got foia materials that showed that the federal government knew from the fifties and sixties forward that there was significant radioactive contamination and they did nothing about it and they systematically misled and lied to the residents of st louis and st charles region and said, no, its actually, its ok. Play in the creek. Its fine. Theres nothing we can do here. So its just the same old story over and over. So i dont want to hear about conversations. I want to hear about action. I want that school reopened. Now, tell me about the welden springs site, which is another of these Nuclear Contamination sites. You have total ownership of that. When is it going to be fully remediated . The response that weve got for you lays out the history and he looked. Of course, the department of energy was created in the seventies, but weve got precursor uh agencies that were responsible for uh the kinds of uh time periods youre talking about. And we lay that history out just from our records, but happy to go into any level of detail in terms of what the government did do at 40 50 years ago, at least based on, uh, based on our, uh, record along those lines. Uh, were very focused on the creek. Ive got a map here right in front of me, uh, looking at all the schools and others in the vicinity of the watershed in the creek area. And ive asked our Legacy Management team, which is the, when is the Weldon Spring site, which is squarely under your jurisdiction . Whens it gonna be remediated . So, well have to get back to you on that. I dont have that. Did you not think id asked that today . I mean, ive written it to you. This is how this goes. You were before me in february and you said ill have a bunch of conversations, ill get back to you. Its september. Now youre saying ill have a bunch of conversations, ill get back to you. Uh are we gonna be having this conversation again in six months or nine months . I can get you that information today. I just dont have it today. Would be, would be good. Get it back to you today. Good. Ill, ill hold you to that and im glad were in an open forum here. So, um, lets get that done and lets get a date fixed on when the remediation of Weldon Spring. And for those who are wondering what he was talking about an Elementary School a second ago. Now, hes this other site. Yeah, thats because there are multiple sites in the st louis and st charles regions affecting thousands of people over 70 years who have been exposed to this contamination and lied to about it. So, yeah, im not happy about it. Last question for you. I recently submitted an amendment to the National Defense authorization act that would provide compensation to the victims of this Nuclear Contamination. I am delighted to say it passed the senate and as i look across the dias here, just about every person on, on that side of the dias over there voted for it. I thank each of you. Thank you for it. Senator and i worked together on this. The president , President Biden has said that he thinks it is vitally important to get these folks compensated for what has happened to them. Do you agree with that . Do you support our legislation to compensate the victims in st louis and elsewhere of Nuclear Contamination . So certainly support the intent behind the legislation. Its the department of justice, thats the Relevant Agency here here. So i cant speak for them or speak for the administration as a whole. You wont agree with the president. Whats that . You wont agree with the president. I will always agree with the president. Well, let me ask you again. Do, do you, do you support the legislation to, to compensate the victims of this Nuclear Contamination, radioactive waste again . Ill leave the, leave it to the president to speak about Administration Policy on this. Ive not seen what he said. And if you want to follow up with a second with the second round, we let, let everybody get their first round and well come back. Ok. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, senator. Thanks for holding this important and timely hearing over the recess. I held a a i forum in seattle uh Pacific Northwest laboratory showcased its Rapid Analytics for disaster response, a tool that is a detection system for all hazards. Important. It was used to assist in both ukraine and in some of the maui aftermath. Others in the Allen Institute for a i environment have demonstrated how theyre using satellite imagery to improve wildfire management. Really important for us in the Pacific Northwest. Also using it to detect Illegal Fishing in our maritime sector. Very important issue to us in the Pacific Northwest and enforcement and surveys of our land for conservation purposes. So we need to invest, i believe in more innovation. And thats why we obviously are supportive of what happened with chips and science. And now with a i for our competitiveness, the United States cannot, cannot slow down on a i as it relates to our competitiveness internationally and for National Security reasons. So our National Labs have assisted us in super reliable and robust data sets. The Us Department of energy interNational Labs are essential to our leadership in Artificial Intelligence. So i wanted to ask our panelists, you spoke about the need for us leadership in this issue. Deputy secretary turk, and also i believe mr stevens, you mentioned labs, supercomputers are positioned to create the tools for riskessment to evaluate a i systems. So how do we, how do we get both nst and doe working together on these tool assessments in determining what are true Risk Assessments . So theyre identified and what do we need to do to help build a workforce, particularly in skilling the workforce for a i and either one, doctor stevens or mr turk, either one of you want to start, it doesnt matter. Go ahead. Professor, you start and ill back clean up. Partnering in how to uh take the assets of due and connect them to the analytical and uh conceptual framework that nst has been working on for a i Risk Management so i think that is an ongoing conversation. Theyre participating in working groups that weve established consortia across the laboratories that are working on how we will do Risk Assessment for large ai models. So i believe that part is already moving and i feel quite positive about where thats going in terms of the workforce. I think the young people are hungry to work on a i you dont have to encourage them. All you have to do is say here is an opportunity and they are there. I mean, our courses, any course at any Major University thats on a i is going to be oversubscribed. So i think what we have to do is we have to provide enough resources that any student in the us. He wants to make a meaningful contribution to a i in the National Interest has an opportunity to be funded to go to school, to go to graduate school, to do internships and to participate. And thats going to require multiple agencies cooperating on that. Do we . Of course, support students and support student internships . But in a very limited number. Nsf of course can do it in a much larger number but other agencies as well. We need a coordinated National Strategy to build an ai workforce and we need some leadership to organize that. Yeah, just two things to add. One. Its noa and we have the Computing Power and because we have data and other facilities that you not only with your role in this committee but chair as role of the Commerce Committee as well making sure we got these capabilities to work with partners throughout the agency and we need to take full advantage of that. Do you agree with dr. Stephens with the work force issue . Completely agree and for you to focus on this, asking questions about this, we need to focus on the work force. I talked to a number of folks who want to work on a. I. And work private sector is great and we need talent in the private sector but we need to work in the government and take these public challenges as well and make it attractive to them in all sorts of ways to compete. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Chair. Secretary, you know that china is working very diligently to copy and take a lot of the capabilities and research that is being developed at our National Laboratories, in your opinion, how much have they taken or copied and are the National Labs really able to protect themselves, not only in terms of the information they have but also as they hire people . Dont they have to be very careful whom they hire and how they hire and so forth so they know that that information isnt going from employees to china or other actors that, you know, have adverse interest to our country . Well, thanks for the question and the answer is we need to be very aware and need to have a layered strategy to deal with these security challenges so weve put in place specific prohibitions, if you worked in a foreign Talent Program in china, for instance, but its not just china, you cant work in the department of energy lab. We have specific restrictions in place where we see particular risks. Secondly, we adopted and annually updating our risk matrix that looks at a. I. As one of the six particularly sensitive technologies we do an extra screening and make sure were taking care of those sensitive technologies in particular. And third we have counterintelligence experts in our field offices that cover all of our National Laboratories looking into any allegations and making sure were running down all leads along those lines. But we want to attract top talent in our u. S. National labs and have that expertise coming and benefit from that, the public and private sector, many of those, over 90 of a. I. P. H. D. s stay more than five years and benefit from that but we have to have eyes wide open and have a balance here so we try to get it right and update over time, too. You went into my next question, what about people that leave and get recruited away because they have all that Incredible Knowledge and what if they get recruited to, you know, either a rogue actor or a country like china or somebody trying to get the information that way, just hiring them away from you . Well, its not just happening with chinese nationals and other countrys nationals and others recruited elsewhere, also. We have to be eyes wide open on the front end if theres a particular risk of an individual that we think can take the experience they learn in a national lab and take it back to china or other countries that mean us challenge in the world then we have to have restrictions and those screens in place as i mentioned along those lines and then weve got to, you know, balance the benefits we get from all these world class talent coming here with the risks that were going to have from some folks deciding theyre going to work elsewhere and take what theyve learned and take it elsewhere and be vigilant with a layered approach. Weve empowered a group of experts across the labs and headquarters to make sure were continually improving our risk matrix but how we do things more generally. A real challenge. No doubt about it. You need the talent but have to screen it on the front end and careful not to lose it on the back end. Incredibly difficult. Along in a similar way but a little bit different, i want to ask both ms. Pelesi and dr. Stephens, what about people flatout copying, and you develop some great product, whatever, how about someone taking and copying it. Look what iran is doing with droughns, and other countries, two, copying our technologies and they may be inferior but theyre copying it in many respects, how do you prevent rogue actors from doing that kind of thing or can you . China made a living copying our stuff. Id like your permission go crazy, go wild. Im sitting in for the chairman. I take it all back. Fellow governor. We have to mind our ps and qs. Its very much a challenge but the technological know how and our strategy is focused on things and something tangible. Its a technological knowhow of how you use that and you can copy something or i can translate something and dont understand what it means and why that talent fee is so important. I would venture to say that our system really isnt set up for this particular challenge that we have today. Were pretty much set up to fight the soviets, we look for Intelligence Officers and direct military end use and have very narrow laws around economic espionage which we could discuss en masse for a long time. But whats being targeted are things that are earlier and earlier in the Development Cycle that are beyond most of our Mitigation Strategy and that is going to be an ongoing challenge to think how we find ways to enhance and keep investing in that early Development Cycle work which is a essential part of the labs at both the same time finding those ways to protect that and then that kind of gets at the work force and gets at technological know how and then how do we then find new ways to face a challenge. I could tell youve been thinking about it. Its good youre very thoughtful about that, i appreciate that. Thank you. I can tell its something youre working on and thats good. Thank you, senator. Nor kelly. Senator kelly thank you, chairman. Dr. Stephens, weve been going through sort of an unprecedented period of drought in the west, worst drought as far as we can tell in 1, 200 years and been going on for 20 years. This summer, rather hot. Its always hot in the desert but we had unprecedented numbers in phoenix, up to 110 degrees and we have unprecedented wildfires not only in arizona but in other parts of the country and in canada, these fires have had significant impacts. Impacts on communities and its been clear to me that we have to leverage every tool at our disposal to mitigate these disasters but also look for opportunities here to promote Forest Restoration which has an impact. We have a big Ponderosa Pine forest in arizona, biggest in the world in fact and we are looking for to get this forest restored. It cant be overstated to look at data sets rather quickly and accurately to predict things. Cal fire is conducting a Pilot Program using a. I. To help with the Early Detection of wildfires. My question to you is twofold. Can you first elaborate on the current initiatives and advancements here with using a. I. For wild land firefighting if there is any going on and secondly, a little bit looking ahead to how your laboratory envisions collaborating with other Government Agencies and the private sector. Sure. Thank you for that question. Were familiar with the cal fire efforts and our department is working on that and fires start with smoke often and a. I. Trying to detect cameras from mountaintops and other vantage points, early examples of fire often get confused by fog or by tractors stirring up dust so theres a need to improve the a. I. Algorithms to determine images and upgrade the technology so we get infrared imaging as well as visible light imaging and realize its going to take some time to fully deploy a. I. And reengineer how cal fire and the whole teams will use it and hopefully a. I. Will put more computer based eyeballs on the territory than humans could ever look at the monitors and so on. So the long term impact of a. I. In firefighting and Disaster Management in general is going to be huge. A. I. Can synthesize and infuse information from satellites or on ground or reports from people texting or tweeting or cameras and from the workers, firefighters on the ground from a common database that tells us whats going on and will be critically important. National labs have been involved in trying to model and simulate fire in the west, in particular los alamos has had a very Large Program over many years to build simulations that could predict the likelihood of fires and be able to understand the amount of flammable material accumulating through the forest and so forth. I think all the National Laboratories are interested in helping with Disaster Management and likely earlier comments of the work at argon and los alamos and livermore and everyone is interested in this problem. We need to work out how we partner between federal and state and local that have the responsibility for this into a structure that really advances both a. I. But takes a practical look. We have to try lots of things but not everything will work and adjust our strategy to focus on what works. Do you know the specifics of the a. I. Algorithm and are they trying to incorporate lightning detection . Because obviously a lot of forest fires start with lightning and we know where lightning occurs. We can detect it lieu the e. M. Spectrum and electromagnetic stuff and overlay that on the geographical maps and overlay that with imagery and im quite familiar with how its being done but dont think its fully integrated yet and can do much better than what were currently doing. Then you can narrow the field. If theres a history of lightning there and youre seeing smoke. Exactly. Thank you. Senator, you want to defer to senator king . Senator higgenlooper, you can fight it out. Thank you for spending time here today. I think its a fascinating discussion. I want to start with mr. Wheeler. We have a company in colorado called gill that trains for Large Companies like walmart or chipotle, their employees want to take skill based classes at colleges or whatever and gill does polling of entry level engineers and coders all across professions and their most recent poll saw a dramatic increase near universal in the level of concern expressed at a. I. To these beginning level engineers and every industry of course Needs Technology and i think the intense Computing Resources that are needed to train and run a. I. Models at scale raise a lot of questions youre already addressing. End rail out in colorado operates a High PerformanceComputer Data center designed to be the worlds most energy efficient. I think when we look at some of these things, what other types of efficiency can we look at, mr. Wheeler. And recognize that society, what has come up in terms of the work force. Thanks for the question, senator higgenlooper. Im very familiar with the facility and some of the machines there at end rail, colorado being my home state. But i think there are multiple ways to look at this. So i think as you say all the excitement around a. I. , theres a lot of people wanting to get into that as maybe theyre transitioning careers but understandably concerned with some of the risk around it. We have something we say internally a lot is, you know, look, a. I. Is not going to replace that scientist or that engineer, editor, teacher, you name it, the list goes on. But those same individuals, professionals that harness a. I. Will likely replace those that dont. So from a work force or transition we see many wanting to get into that as a career. They recognize the opportunity and the great thing about guild is maybe theyre not taking people that came up from a stem background or education but guess what, with all the tools and everything being developed, suddenly you dont have to necessarily be the deep mathematics expert. You can be very proficient with the tool sets that are out there if youve got that willingness to learn. Now, that being said, you know, what are those guardrails that have been placed or how do we think about some of the risks associated with the technology. You asked about what other things can be done. I think end rail is a great example of showcasing a lot of what can be done, whether its from the energy recapture of those systems, as others on the panel have stated, just providing access to that type of infrastructure and compute is a big part of kind of lowering the barrier to maybe some of the anxiety and being part of the solution because, you know, if you have a passion around that as a field of study on how to mitigate some of the risk around this, well, having access enables you to develop and propose those type of solutions. Thank you for that. Ms. Puglisi, a lot of the innovations fueled by a. I. Come from fundamental and applied research adopted by Small Businesses. And in your testimony you highlight about how investing in Research Supports our countrys technological leadership. How have historic investments from Transitional Research from chips plus science act grow our Technical Work force within our innovation economy . Ms. Puglisi i think those investments are essential because what gets lost a lot of times are those transition points and so we focus on a a lot of funding focuses on basic research or focuses on applied and i think what some of the advantages that are focused on in the chips and sciences is it looks at transition points and how do we move technology so it best serves the public and best serves society. And so having those kinds of skills is a very different kind of skill than actually doing the research but having that support across what we call the valley of death or other kinds of challenges are really important to kind of keep that spark going. Thank you on that. I appreciate that. Ill yield. Senator king, ill wander over and make sure your seat is covered if you want to take a couple extra minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I put in to chat b. G. T. , the following question, write a poem about joe manchin and shawn baros is o and in less than three seconds this is what they broke. In Senate Chambers where voices resound manchin and baroso are found and two paths they pursue but united by a role they must construe. Manchin a democrat from West Virginia hills with it shaped by the hills and seeks grace and in a divided senate finds his place. Baros is o, a republican from wyoming plains with conservative values that deeply ingrains his vision for policy distinct and clear in the halls of congress he perseveres. Though ideologies often converge in the senate they engage and discuss and urge. For the common good they both aspire to serve their constituents their hearts on fire. Two senators distinct in their view but bound by a duty to represent you, in democracys stance they play their part, joe manchin and john baroso with determined heart. Make sure we dont eliminate that part of the a. I. But think of that, in less than two seconds the data researched to present that material together, make it rhyme and have it be so representative of our two senators. And i just think we ought to realize the unbelievable power of this. Its a homely example but think we need to understand the radical nature of this technology. Mr. Turk, a homely question, one of the problems in the Energy Transition which you know is one of the major issues of our time is i. S. O. s timeliness of processing applications for connection to the grid. Theres a huge backlog in virtually all of the i. S. O. s in the country, can a. I. Contribute . Because it seems to me that decision about inner connection which involve capacity, reliability, safety, that strikes me as a engineering question that a. I. Should be helpful with. I think the short answer is yes and ive been ming to the ive been speaking with the heads of the i. S. O. s and doing what we can on the interconnection cube. If you cant get things connected to the grid, were not going to achieve our goals or get all the benefits from these technologies. Right now the q is one of the major bottlenecks to this transition. The q and the qs with different i. S. O. s is a major bottleneck, youre exactly right. There are a number of efforts being undertaken right now. The ferc has put out some rules to try to make sure its not just first in, who gets consideration but first ready so that we try to make sure were taking the applications of those most impactful along those lines. I hope youll take steps to use a. I. To radically shorten this process. I think that would be a major contribution. It would be great. I wanted to highlight, the acronym is i2x our Energy People are working to bring all the i. S. O. s together and Software Fixes and a. I. Nexts and get you more information on that but its a very exciting effort. I appreciate that. The word water marking was used earlier. I dont want the government deciding whats true and not true. Thats not the direction we want to go and its not consistent with our principles and values. On the other hand, it seems to me people that use information on the internet or otherwise have a right to know its source. Mr. Stephens, you mentioned water marking, what were really talking about is for me its labeling. This film or this article was produced with a. I. That would be Important Information for people to have in assessing the validity of what theyre seeing. How close are we to having that technology . We know how to do it. Its a question of getting agreement that a. I. Companies would use some kind of common approach and not some proprietary approach and then also how we enforce or require it. I was going to say, could the congress require the platforms for a. I. Material, its got to be labeled . Thats the current approach. I think its flawed in the sense that there will be ultimately many hundreds or thousands of generators of a. I. , some of which will be the big Companies Like google and open a. I. And so forth. There will be many, many open models produced outside of the United States and produced elsewhere of course that wouldnt be bound by a u. S. Regulation. So i think what were ultimately going to end up having to do is validate real sources as well as we can have a law that says water mark a. I. Generated content but a rogue player outside the u. S. , say, operating in russia or china or somewhere wouldnt be bound by that and can produce a ton of material that wouldnt actually have those water marks and could pass those tests, perhaps. So i think were going to have to be more nuanced or strategic in this in that were going to have to authenticate real content down to the source, whether its true or not is a separate issue but if its produced by real humans in a real meeting, that stream would get tagged so you know thats real. Im ever time and due to preside. I would appreciate it if youd give some thought to this because its a Current Issue for us and we have a major election coming up in a little over a year, this information via a. I. Could play a pivotal role. We need your best thinking now. So to the extent can you get back to this committee on these subjects, it would be very, very helpful to us. Happy to do it. Let me tell you, i dont need to tell you how informative and interesting this has been, what we received. I think what everybody told you what were concerned about. My good friend here found something very complimentary and appreciate it very much but probably could have found something very concerning or harmful very quickly, yall. So i think the first line of defense that im looking at im concerned about is how do we protect from altering peoples lives and thats basically compensation, whether it be at their workplace or if theyre retired, retirement checks, social security, medicare, how well have we heartened it or prevented a. I. From figuring out a way to come through, backdoor, side door, anything differently that could put them at risk, changing or altering their lives because thats when its going to be very difficult for us to put that genie back in the bottle and thats what im concerned about. Getting into investment portfolios, theyre doing this all the time trying and makes it very difficult. Its bad enough when someone gets your credit card stolen what they have to go through to get that corrected. Can you only imagine what this could do . So this is what were asking all of you with the knowledge you have and expertise but also the challenges that were going to have. I know we think about defense. Weve been talking in Armed Services about offense versus defense. Were already using a. I. In defensive procedures now but offensively we still want that Human Element involved to make a decision, do we launch a strike or not . That will be very detrimental and very important, its unbelievable with farreaching results. So i think were in unchartered waters to a certain extent but those ahead of the curve now can help us from falling into the deep end where we cant be saved. If weve learned anything about the internet we learned for all the good it did, there are people out there waiting to use it for nefarious situations and they do it every day. With that let me say i appreciate it very much and i think youve done a wonderful job presenting this and you see the interest we have and concerns we have but i think the support that you have from all of us trying to make sure that we whatever dollar we up vest we have to invest an awful lot and were willing to do that but dont want to reinvent the wheel and want to have the wheel balance out and run a little smoother. Were all here to help. Thank you so much. Members will have until the close of business tomorrow to submit additional questions for the record. Thank you. The meeting is adjourned. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2023] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy visit ncicap. Org]