Transcripts For CSPAN2 Hearing 20240703

The latest episodes of washington journal and scheduling information for cspans tv networks and cspan radio plus a variety of compelling podcasts. Cspan now is available at the apple store and google play, download it for free today. Cspan now your front row seat to washington anytime anywhere. On capitol hill, Deputy Energy secretary david turk talked about the work on science and technology with ai. This hearing before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources committee is about two hours. [inaudible conversations] the meeting will come to order. Our hearing today is kicking off discussions for the following timely topic. Recent advances in Artificial Intelligence and the department of energys role in ensuring our continued competitiveness and emerging technologies, over the past few years six National Labs have been working to understand challenges around ai and various issues. National laboratory in illinois, Lawrence Livermore and Lawrence Berkeley National Labs in california, la sal most, National Labs in new mexico and art ridge dark ridge National Labs in tennessee. The labs work in bringing together fundamental science and National Security missions, this hearing will examine their findings. This hearing will also discuss 1. 8 billion Computing Program the committee authorized. If we want to invest in ai in a costeffective way we must build on existing programs and avoid duplication. Most people think of us as advancing Energy Technologies like nuclear reactors, Carbon Capture and hydrogen. The doe does more than just energy. The department, the largest supporter physical, Scientific Research and the federal government conducting research and developing technologies across a range of fields from quantum computing, astro physics, last congress we spent a lot of time examining the Critical Role in broad Scientific Research in the context of the endless frontier act which became laws and the chips in science act, doe scientific or jumpstart private Sector Innovation and strengthens our economy to National Security. Doe research ensures the us can anticipate, assess, and mitigate emerging Technology Threats related to advance computing, biotechnology, Nuclear Security and more. Artificial intelligence across the vast mission has the potential to revolutionize scientific discovery, technology, deployment, National Security. Ai has already changed the world at a remarkable pace. We are seeing it deployed in battlefields across the world. Ukraine successfully used and i enabled drones forms against russian forces. Also ai helped us fight covid 19, oak Ridge National lavatories uses Artificial Intelligence and Computing Resources to model proteins to help develop the vaccine but make no mistake, Artificial Intelligence also presents many risks. Earlier this year, nonscientific students in mit was tasked with investigating whether ai chat bots could be prompted to assist nonexperts in causing a pandemic and in just one hour, just one hour, chat bots suggested four potential pandemic pathogens, how they could be generated from synthetic dna using reverse genetics, supply the names of the dna synthesis companies, and likely to screen orders, identify detailed protocols and how to troubleshoot them and recommended anyone lacking skills to perform reverse genetics engage a 4 core facility or Contact Research organizations. That comes from a Research Paper titled can largely which model be democratized to be used by technology which i ask unanimous consent to enter into the record. Scientific and engineering expertise is a barrier that protects us from rogue actors. Until now the common person has not had access to the resources to launch these hightech threats. Availability of Ai Technologies illuminate much of the expertise required to develop a weapon, disease, cyber attack, eroding defenses we had in the past. Ai is not new as an art. Ai is not a new issue for the committee or the department of energy. Since 1960, doe has been a key player in investment in ai, we all know the department has 17 National Labs, 34 user facilities that are crown jewels in americas network. Doe National Laboratory system houses a workforce of 70,000 scientists, engineers, researchers 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 future of ai. Doe is also the largest funder of physical science and manages more Scientific Data than any other agency. As a result the department has Computing Resources, expertise, experience managing large volumes of data that give the department the National Leadership on Artificial Intelligence. When federal agencies have an ai problem they look to the doe and its labs for help. Over the last decade department developed thousands of applications. The National Energy Technology Lab in morgantown, West Virginia supports department of interior in using Artificial Intelligence to identify oil and gas wells. By analyzing survey maps, drilling permits, historical images, production records, and high witness accounts to find well sites. During the 2,023 orangey awards which im told is referred to as the office of innovation, doctor rich stevens of national lab is one of the Witnesses Today was recognized for his work using ai to accelerate, discover new Cancer Therapies and treatments that are highly personalized for individual patients and our committee has recently put an Important Role in advancing does ai work recognizing the United States is not far behind in supercomputing race. We authorized the excess Computing Program at the department of energy in the one hundred fifteenth congress. In may of last year the frontier supercomputer at oak Ridge National laboratory in tennessee past the ability to perform one billion calculations per second. Thats a lot. Making this the fastest supercomputer in the world. China had the fastest computers, now the us has regained the lead. This supercomputer is using ai to model their behavior of human cells to develop better treatments for alzheimers, and cancer. But this 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. Americans must accelerate efforts to compete and defend against china and ai. China on ai. It is estimated the annual chinese ai investments will reach 26 billion by 2026 which dwarfs the Us Governments current spending of 3. 3 billion per year, 20152021, Chinese Ai Companies include 40. 2 billion from us investors which i cannot even believe. And 251 ai companies. In 2017 china released a new generation of Ai Development plans which includes r d, the us currently does not have a Strategic Plan like this. In addition to Government Spending chinas workforce advantage is significant, has twice as many phds and masters degree holders. China has Artificial Intelligence phd programs in every one of the top universities. This committee champions the Chinese Government could be set to operate as many as 10 supercomputers by 2025. Xi jinping has pointed to our National Lab Network calling it indispensable momentum for the element innovation in science and technology, soon, china may have their own lab network. Last week a Company Released a chinese commonest Party Language model compared to chat gpt. The apps developed in the us which we all heard a lot about. It is the most downloaded apps in asia and is expected to continue to grow. They need to do more Strategic Planning so americans have confidence we are leveraging Key Resources such as our National Labs to the full potential. We should encourage others to use these resources and promote private sector partnerships with of the department of interNational Labs to develop safe commercial applications. We must also understand additional investment needed to spur leadership in Artificial Intelligence, congress should focus on strengthening our existing programs rather than creating duplicate new programs at other agencies. We should also ensure doe and National Labs can responsibly recruit leading ai experts in our country and globally. The ai expertise comes from abroad. They were cofounded nearly half of top startups in the us and International Students earn 60 of Computer Science doctorates. All at the same time we must be absolutely sure the departments ai work includes Strong Research security requirements. We will not outcompete china in ai if they are able to steal the technology funded by taxpayer dollars. The chips in science act that passed last Congress Featured research and security improvements that are currently being implemented by the department. However, it is an evolving threat. We must be clear eyed in this threat. The United States must remain at the forefront of new emerging technologies, the department of energy is an essential component of that. Im looking forward to hearing apps as his perspectives on steps our committee and the department could take to ensure americas advancing ai in a competitive responsible manner. With that i turn to my friends were opening remarks. Appreciate your opening remarks because Artificial Intelligence is rapidly transforming the world. It is already impacting our daily lives. Artificial intelligence plays an Important Role in the energy sector, mining ai can reduce equipment downtime, advanced algorithms all minors locate mineral rich deposits for more efficient exploration. Realtime analytic strength and worker safety programs by predicting potential hazards. Artificial intelligence helps pinpoint oil and gas reserves, predictive models harness data to streamline operations and reduce costs, sensors reinforce Pipeline Safety and efficiency. Artificial intelligence has great promise to expand our economy and strengthen our National Security. Also raises welldocumented concerns. A study of the university of east anglia highlighted a significant and systemic leftwing bias in chat gpt platform. In the United States it revealed a bias in favor of democrats, the same program favored the labour party and the United Kingdom and the Workers Program party in brazil. Cant let political bias infiltrate the element of ai. This is particular true when taxpayer dollars are helping fund technologies development. Innovation in emerging technologies like Artificial Intelligence can be a source of great strength. It can be a key advantage in our geopolitical competition with china and russia. It could also create a National Security risk if the technologies are not properly protected. The department of energy has a role of intelligence research. The most advanced commuting systems, National Labs have significant experience developing our nations most sensitive technologies. The peoples republic of china is watching every move made at our National Labs. Since 1987 the chinese commonest party, targeted 160 chinese researchers working at our premier Nuclear Weapons lab. Returning to china, key military technologies, financed by american taxpayers. Fbi officials warned that china is targeting us businesses, universities and Government Research facilities, china trying to get their hands on cutting edge American Research and technology. Nonus resident chinese nationals still working at the nations labs, many of these foreign nationals strive to further scientific innovation and collaborate in good faith. They find themselves beholden to an authoritarian regime and the chinese commonest partys relentless. Some of these chinese nationals will see no choice to support the Chinese Communist through 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, the intense global competition surrounding Artificial Intelligence. They may drive advancements in the field, we cant overlook the threat to National Security posed by the Chinese Government. The department of energy and our National Labs must take the china threat more seriously. We cant let our Technology Fall into the hands of those in beijing good. I look forward to hearing from our Witnesses Today on what additional steps Research Agencies in laboratories and Universities Fund must take to prevent this theft of american technology. Thanks for calling this important hearing. I would like to thank the witnesses for being here today. We will have david turk, deputy secretary of energy, thank you for the great work. The associate laboratory, anna puglisi of Georgetown University center for security in emerging technology, and mr. Andrew wheeler, Vice President at hewlettpackard enterprises. I will turn to david turk, we begin with your opening remarks. Distinguished members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity. On behalf of the department of energy, we talk about our activities in and vision for Artificial Intelligence. Let me begin, appropriately so, by thanking this committee, for years and years of strong, sustained support that led to the doe becoming an ai powerhouse. You laid out much of that in your own Opening Statement. With your leadership we designed, developed and operate four of the top ten fastest supercomputers in the world including the fastest, frontier at oak Ridge National lab. Through the computing project doe is developing the worlds first Capable Software ecosystem that is helping drive breakthroughs. Ai breakthroughs incredible areas as varied as material science, cancer research, earthquake Risk Assessment, Energy Production and storage, computational weapons application, and i could go on and on. Across a network of 34 National User facilities around the country doe generates tremendous volumes of highquality data, literally the fuel that can lead to more ai breakthroughs. Most importantly, doe National Laboratory system houses a workforce of over 70,000 scientists, engineers, researchers and support personnel with world leading expertise. It is a particular pleasure to be joined on this panel by professor rick stevens, one of those top experts, as you mentioned in your Opening Statement. As proud as we all should be about this foundation, now is the time to take these capabilities to the next level. Advances in ai are enabling enormous progress in breakthroughs that can address key challenges of our time and we need to double down on that technical capability, computers, software, data, and researchers to make sure we have those breakthroughs in the us and our private sector, benefit from that as well. Governments around the world are investing in ai capabilities as never before. 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 much of that information rightfully so falls within the purview are Intelligence Community and National Security enterprise. D. O. E. Can play an incredibly Important Role including developing methods for assessing and red teaming and i model to identify and mitigate the risks presented by these cuttingedge ai systems that are only developed and improving incredibly quickly over weeks and months ahead. Over the past five years we work with stakeholders across the ai ecosystem identify new and rapidly emerging opportunities and challenges presented by ai. And to identify very specifically how unique d. O. E. Capabilities the strong foundation. Again thanks to this committee. How we can drive progress for an eye Going Forward from the department of energy side of things. This culminated in the may 2023 release of a report called ai for science, energy and security. This visiond and blueprint aligned precisely with the pressing need for scientific grounding in areas such as bias transparency, security, validation 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 science security and technology, or fast, by acronym. This is exactly, chairman, as you sit a Strategic Vision company Strategic Plan for the d. O. E. Nested within a broader Strategic Vision for the u. S. And the u. S. Government. Mr. Ranking member, your rightfully point up there are also researched Security Issues andue challenges we need to take headon and be wise open and improving our systems on a regular basis. I wants. To thank our fellow panelist, ms. Puglisi, for all of her work, excellent testimony that we can improve on even further at the department of energy side including our science and Technology Risk matrix which i wouldbe be happyo get into in the question and answer sessions. We look very forward to further discussing the fast proposal. Everything else we are doing and updating it based on this committee this committees continued guidance and leadership. There is no doubt that with ai we are now on the cusp of our next grand challenge her in the United States. Working within and outside the government, d. O. E. Stand ready to step up to this moment to play our role and fully engaging in this grand challenge by utilizing our unique computing capacity, comprehensive well curated data sets. Our s algorithms, relationships with industry, and again most and poorly our skilled leading scientific workforce. All ofs us at the department of energy, our National Labs very much look forward to working with this committee to live up to this moment. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you, doctor cirque. And now were going to go to dr. Thank you, chairman manchin and Ranking Member brasso and members of the committee. For this opportunity to participate in todays discussion of National Labs andd ai. I have worked on advanced computing forn over 30 years, oregon at the university, much of that time ive been driven by this idea argon that we need to build intelligence in future computing. Over the last four years i had a fortune work with my colleagues at all the labs, come all 17 ls over 30 universities and dozens of companies to run a series of town hall meetings, seven townhall meetings over four years, involved of 1300 researchers and at these meetings we challenge the community to think broadly about how advanced ai systems going beyond what we can do today could be developed and applied in d. O. E. Mission spaces to accelerate Scientific Research, accelerate development of Energy Technologies and improve National Security. What im going to tell you about now is little bit of those outcomes of that report. The consensus is theres an enormous opportunity here to use ai to accelerate discovery both in basic science, accelerate the application of that in Energy Technology and improve how we actually conduct all of our work and National Security. Some of these applications could range from new technologies for better batteries that say regardless Rare Earth Minerals which would improve Global Security in and of itself. The new types of polymers that could be ideal for each application but could be recycled indefinitely without losing performance. We dont know howni to do that today we think ai could help us with that. We believe ai could be coupled with robotics to automate much experimental science, improving throughput by orders of magnitude. In fact, it so compelling that idea that some of my colleagues have formed this concept of ai driven science factory or some people called self driving laboratories as a way we both actual excellent work in development for cancer or new materials for semiconductors work ai can also address key challenges in software development. D. O. E. Manages over billions of lines of code and we do not have enough developers, enough Senior Software developers to maintain that code, to port that cotonou machines. We know ai can help us with that problem. In fact, ai systems appropriately trained in tune could help us design that only software, but hardware for next nextgeneration systems and help us build systems that its a huge amount of energy. Ai systems are also being used to explore ways to control complexx systems like fusion reactors and we think that same idea could be applied to control future power grids werere we hae a diversity of sources and changes in demand. Ai can also be used to accelerate scientific simulationson by replacing traditional numerical methods with new ai driven methods and achieving speedups of factors of 100 or more across many applications from weather prediction to electronic structure competition that use over 30 of d. O. E. Computers. And finally the biggest opportunity is probably decide that Foundation Models come Underlying Technology behind things like chatgpt but applying that the sites. We were discovering that those types of technologies are incredibly personable for doing scientific problems. They have been trained on millions of signed papers, vastly more note that individual scientists would ever absorb ino a lifetime and can be used to integrate and synthesize knowledge, suggest new lines of attack on open problems and so forth. In short, and a surprise to many, current Foundation Models have demonstrated an unusual utility in science, maybe a decade earlier than we thought and that is one of the dramatic opportunities and challenges. Because these models can directly affect scientific productivity today, and we do not have a strategy across the department for aggressively using this, its a big opportunity and also a challenge. So ai in all of its forms is rapidly becoming the mostra important tool in the scientific and technical toolbox. And as result of these workshops and the progress over the last five years, i believe its imperative that the u. S. Lead the world ind the development of advanced ai systems for scientific and National Security applications. I believe d. O. E. 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 whether academicbe 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 that could have many names but the goal is to go dramatically beyond where we are today in isa for them to secure fashion, in a reliable fashion. Whoever leads of the worldin ini 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 ai. Whoever leads the world in the development of ai for energy will lead the world in developing and deploying nextgeneration Energy Technology such as modular reactors that can be safe and deployed anywhere at moments notice. Or 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 satan electrification of the economy. And by doing that we will secure the energy and climate frontier. And finally, whoever leads the world and in understanding d mitigating the risks of ai and the use of ai to improve national and Global Security will determine the landscape in which we and our allies will live and workto in the future, securing our lifestyle and our prosperity. Thank you for your time and i would look forward to the questions. Thank you, dr. Stevens. Now we will have ms. Puglisi. And and i think that right . Im so sorry. 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 Renewable Energy Laboratory in colorado and the National Energy Technology 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 Oceanic Atmospheric 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. So weve got a lot of steps in terms of security and do we k with and then how to the work told me he gets thank you, mr. Chairman. Senator hirono. Thank you, mr. Chairman. So weve heard from all of you that the Chinese Government has a e system, campaign of stealing americande intelligence, intellectual property to advance their economy, that our d. O. E. Labs are targeted for this kind of effort. But i want to point out as some of you have pointed out the sensitivities involved and the problems that is required so it is important to deter Chinese Government wrongdoing and prosecute espionage and theft, but our concern is is that te Chinese Government actions, not chinese people. We must avoid misguided prosecution such as what was undertaken by the Justice Department in 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 listen to some of the responses that you provide already on the subject for secretary, mr. Turk, you say that we are Going Forward with eyes wide open and we have some proactive steps that the d. O. E. Has taken. So do you consider the steps to be adequate to protect us from the kind of intellectual property espionage engaged by entities such as china and perhaps russia, iran . Well, youre right to say its not just china. Theres others as well. Of courseor russia, iran, north korea, et cetera. I think the short answer in 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. Where annually updating that risk matrix nowve so we make sue were updating a terms of what technology we consider sensitive, what protocols we have in place. We have Standing Group now made up of folks from throughout the labs and d. O. E. Headquarters to take a look and continually provide ideas to the secretary, myself, so we can continue improve. We just need to improve on a regular basis on a continual basis. And as you say rightly get that balance right. Because the chinae initiati, i would saye we did not get the balance rightht and affected message to the Chinese Community and the api committee was heres our government targeting these people, and created an environment where people were targeted for various kinds of abuse, toin say the least. For mr. Stevens, and wake of the devastating fire on maui, residents have been subject to disinformation on social media likely coordinated by foreign governments,e governmental entities and generate with ai 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 . Absolute he. Yes at this point with more of these kinds of natural disasters occurring with much more devastating results, we can expect that there would be probably these kinds of misinformation to so distrust in her own government. So how can we use ai or the tools to rapidly detect and counter such efforts to spread disinformation especially in emergencies or following disasters . I think we have to take several steps. One is to have advanced systems for detection of synthetic or deep fake information. Right now nontrade information like it is 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 watermarking, this technique of putting secret information in ai generator output so we can detect when is generated by ai. And we need to make headway on watermarking official sources, that is, official news that comes from governments or from responsible parties so it can be detected automatically that that is true and correct information coming out, distinguish it from misinformation generated by ai. So theres a multiple layer, layered approach to protecting the citizens from disinformation, and we have to do all of those things. Do you think, secretary turk, that we all we have these kinds of systems in place . Because as i mentioned you guys, we have natural disasters occurring more frequently more devastating results. You can 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 with somene ofo. M a place that 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 continue update and improve that and, frankly, have the capabilities like were talking about in a fast proposal in the u. S. Government so do the kinds of monitoring scum we can do the kinds of analysis thatt allows s not only theat department of energy but others acrosso the government to have the information and the tools to do the watermarking and other mitigation efforts. To the other two Panel Members want to weigh in on this concerned 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 this information . I think the challenge of misinformation with these tools, as i mentioned in my testimony, my written testimony, with the recent reports about what was happening with facebook and other kinds of social media, we see misinformation across a wide range of topics, areas from the natural disasters to estimate an imminent Opening Statement all kinds of activities that the u. S. Government are either doing or putting in place. I think its a growing issue. Yes, i want to note 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 disinformation out there saying that the response was lacking. And so this kind of sewing of mistrust by i was a russia was a big actor in this instance. Once again for mr. Stevens i just want to note that your testimony highlighted some of the ways that ai can provide risktaking opportunity for technological innovation but what are aragon and the other d. O. E. National labs doing to ensure that the technologies are helping to develop our accessible to Small Businesses to help them innovate. We are very concerned about availability of Small Businesses and students and so on to learn about ai to use ai. I think this concept thats often called democratization access, the different d. O. E. Labs have different programs to make access to our computing facilities and ai models that we produce that are open that are safe and secure available to those communities and we provide help for those communities, whether it Small Businesses or whether its local old governments to gain access to our systems to do that. I think its an ongoing effort. I think more needs to be done there and i think d. O. E. Working in concert with other agencies particularly nsf via Something Like the mayor initiative i could make a big impact on that and something we should do together. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you, senator kirk now we have senator murkowski. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you for this hearing this morning. Obviously a very, very timely topic. As was just alluded to in senator hirono question, theres a lot of good that we can gain from ai, and as scary as it is in so many different areas i think its important not to lose sight that when utilized correctly it can truly be transformational. So a question to you, secretary turk. As we are looking to different applications for good within Ai Technologies and ai workflows, we talk a a lot here in this committee and weve been talking a lot about things like permitting reform. Something that has proven to be tediously long and involving layers of government processes. Do you see application for being able to streamline some internal government processes so that we can reduce the time, for instance, that it might take for an agency to deliver on a permit, or todu 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. We are sitting on a treasure trove of data from previous applicants for different permith out there. If we can harness that data with algorithms with ai we can shrink the timelines with permitting. We can take i advantage of that data in a way that allows us to do what we need to do is build up ourd electricity infrastructure, our transmission, other kinds of infrastructure. Weve got a lot of renewables, into the grid. Weve got to balance all that. Ai can be incredibly helpful with the power and the data that it has available. So youve had an opportunity, a couple opportunities to come to alaska. You have been ready and very well as to many of the unique aspects and a Fortunate One of the unique aspects that we have is, sometimes wet have a lack f data. We just havent done the mapping. We havent done the review, the analysis, and so we know that with ai your output is just as good as your input. And if you have these holes in that, it can be a concern in itself. How can come again how can we utilize the benefits of ai in government processes for good while ensuring that perhaps some states, some areas like alaska where data is just not complete, that theyre not actually a disadvantage . Have you given thought to that . Absolutely, and let me say its a pleasure 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 know 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. I think g you raise an incrediby important point. Ai is only good as the did 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 ont our part and eager o work a with you and our Arctic Energy office to make sure were doingra every thing we can from the department of energy working with others in the federal government to make investments so we have that Data Available so it can be feeding into these ai models. So its an ongoing effort. We are trying to make sure we we bringing that in to everything we do, but its an ongoing effort and something that we will continue working on. But 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 the interior budget, and recognize that wet are still directing a lot of resources, federal resources to just basic mapping, just basic mapping. So we got a long ways to go there. Let me ask you about department of interior. About a month ago the ig for interior Mark Greenblatt noted in an oped in the Washington Post that thered been an inspection undertaken by his office and they were able to tool to cracke more than 18,000, or 21 , of the documents passwords. This included Senior Department officials, hundreds belonged to employees with elevated privileges. More than 14 of his passwords were cracked within the first 90 minutes of testing and he noted hisdo office was able to do this by spending less than 15,000. That should alarm all of us. Probably a general question. And i hope you answer yes, but we understand what happens, or happened at interior is department of energy any better prepared to ward off nefarious actors than we thought doi . So were trying to continue improve. One of the things that makes the most nervous, and right to point out the benefits of ai, but one of thele Biggest Challenges and the technology is only improving and approving, it makes it easier for lecithin skittered actors to do more sophisticated kinds of attacks, whether its cybersecurity or any number of other things, biohazard can even Nuclear Proliferation efforts as well. And soo weve got to take that head on. Thats what we need to make investments in u. S. Government so wein can detect these kinds f things, the head of the curve as much of a possibly can. But this is something we need to keep working on day in a day at whether its the interior department, the department of energy or private Sector Companies as well. This should be a wakeup call, the pandoras box is open. We now need to do with it and take these kinds of emerging ai challenges headon. We are not there. Were not there were we need to be. We need to make investments, we need to keep working at this. This is why we want to put together f our past proposal wih our ideas of what we think we need to do to try to do will begin from the department of energy side and again of the backandforth with you but other share in congress to make sure that we are as prepared as a possibly can. But with that work to do. We have work to do. My fear is what so within the department of interior is just one department of 12, and where the vulnerabilities may be a little bit different, but the impact can be equally huge, equally disastrous. Mr. Chairman, thank you. Thank you. Now we have senator cortez masto. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you for this, to the panelists for this great conversation. Let me start with the deputy secretary turk. Because in nevada we have come and want to thank also hewlettpackard, there wereer pt of this pair peer weve beg some red team hacking going on at some of our universities to really assess what is happening here. Let me address what everybody has talked about in this, the concerns that ai systems can be tricked into providing instruction for causing physical harm. We have talked about that. We need to address it. I think we need to as well. I think those red team hacking weekends are just as important as the manual piece of it, i think dr. Stevens you talked about, that we need to continue. Let me highlight because i know this week in particular that of talking about in august in las vegas, it was designed around the White House Office of science and Technology Policies blueprint for ai bill of rights and its a competition that happens regularly. But my question here is one, yes, that needs to continue. Two, though isat also building r Cyber Workforce committee set n right . T thats whats key to this as well is we need to have more engagement in building that workforce to i am proud that unlv was host of this and will continue to be the host of these types of red team hacking exercises. It also a is important, part of this i i w did a web to create Academic Centers ofs excellence and cyber defense, which unlv is, a number of colleges are and if it many of your participating in those exercises. I guess my question foror you, deputy secretary turk is, what else do we be doing to build that out . Underlings c were going on now. Can you talk about the National Cybersecurity workforce and education strategy . How does it fit into what were trying to achieve with developing that Cyber Workforce and what else do we need to be doing herepi in congress to support it . So the workforce piece is indispensable. 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 i thought up top talent coming to the government for all the functions we need to serve, youve got to the cutting edge facilities and capabilities, right . The fact with the Worlds Largest supercomputer is a pretty nice attractor some of the top that it wanted to do cutting edge applications along those lines. Weve got the data, the other pieces as well. We have to have that infrastructure thats attractive for the top talent. The private sector is going to be able to pay folks an awful lot more than the government even if we oppose is another kinds of attractive options which weree trying to do. Having the national Lab Apparatus gives us greater flexibility candidly than if they were all federal government officials and the Civil Servant kind of sense. And professor stevens can talk about that, using those partnerships, Argonne National lab is a partnership with university of chicago cutting edge university. That helps and it clearly important ways to fight a channel as much folks as we can into this sector. But i think is that we have a successful ai strategy as a government, as a country, unless we have the workforce in the pipelines forha the workforce making sure that weve got the capability not just in a private sector, and kobe important, but in the government for all the functions we need to have here. As were building of the workforce and going to ask hewlettpackard began because i know youre part ofyo this and u have hewlettpackard has a future work academy for community and technical colleges, and theyre involved with nearly what is a 100 100 institutions and over 500 students. So the private sector is engaged, correct . Absolutely. In fact, im glad you even mention the centers of excellence because what we have found over the years, honestly decades, is that really is the best practice for what you have a center with maybe the compute capability, but you bring together those domain experts that are local to that institution, to bring the universities that are local there as well. ,t and really does allow you to develop that o local workforce. And as we think about ai in needing more and more of that expertise, its a great best practice to again help develop that workforce locally and just kind of grow and innovate together. This is the opportunity and maybe dr. Stevens can talk about this because it so hard for in congress to come backu in an overly framework of the try to develop values and principles in thatri framework. This is an opportunity as we are building out that Cyber Workforce to grow those values and principles around ai. Is that the goal here when we develop the curriculum . Yeah, absolutely. I mean as a becomes more powerful as already been mentioned, it does two things. For somebody who knows how, no something, it empowers them to do more, right . The weather that somebody who is defending our systems fromm a cybersecurity t standpoint, it allows them to be more powerful, to affect or systems come to be smart about how they can do defense. But it also empowers the other side to be more aggressive in how they might attack systems. We need to of course when those battles and we have to create community in a new way of thinking, and ai enabled cyber strategy, eddie think thats what we have to start teaching. Its very attractive to the students. When you talk about cybersecurity they are already interested within you bring ai into it, their super interested. I think we have a big opportunity to bring more people into the workforce on this i attaching it to ai. Thank you. Ms. Puglisi . Thats when an essential part of the workforce, future competition. And it might at its also, we spent a lot of focus looking at the phd level or Higher Education level. Its really what does it take to that technical proficient that doesnt necessarily need a degree or need an advanced degree. And i would venture to say to import to start and begin to affect k12 level. And really lay the groundwork because that is really what is going to take to compete. And that appears to be what is happening with what i see with theed different competitio, the difference, whether its the federal government, state or private sector, thats the focus, correct . And actually weve done a lot of work around those topics and importance of competition as well is look at the demographics oft. That workforce so we make sure they have. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Chairman. If we could, ill tell you,k we have two mr. Coats at 11 45 if we can k keep her questions i know we went to seven, we will go back to five minutes if you can. If you need a little longer you can. If you can say closer to five minutes great. Senator hawley. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Turk, before he had to be from the last time we talked. We talked about the radioactive contamination of the federal government had delivered to the st. Louis and st. Charles regions of my state and the particular we talked about janet Elementary School and a greater st. Louis region which was then and is now currently closed because of Nuclear Contamination that private tests found t weren the school. When we visited last, this was in february, you told me that you are having conversations about it. Esting. 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 today and tomorrow, that i think there was one yesterday. Theres another one as well. Good. Theres a second one that should be coming today or tomorrow that i spent some time with the team reviewing and trying to be as responsive as we possibly could on that front. The secretary, myself, the head of our Legacy Management team, caramelo, is working with the army corps and others on this front and on the testing side if particular, ive pushed the team several times. I said what can we do . Is there something we could do from the department of energy side . What we can do is work with the army corps and we have to be active with the army corps and under their authority who gave the authority for the Cleanup Sites for the army corps. Were playing move of a supporting role, but were happy to not only play that supporting role, but to try it push and work with your interagency partners to be responsive, certainly to listens 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, i would be nervous as well. Theres a lot to do not only on the science, but also on the Human Element as well and thank you for your focus on this important issue. When you say youre happy to do it, to do xyz with the army corps, are you doing it, pushing to do the additional testing . Were having active conversations with the army corps. Thats what you said in february. Its under them to think where its appropriate to do additional testing. Weve had active conversations. Were 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 other testing. Oh, im aware of what theyre doing. Let me tell you what the situation is. Just a few days ago, the army corps reported that theyve removed 301 truckloads, 301 truckloads 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, what they said to the Strict School district and it was your responsibility to do more testing. You said no, its their responsibility. Currently nobody is doing more additionally and it isnt just a few months, mr. Turk. This is 70 years. Since 1949. 1949. There has been contamination, radioactive contamination in 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 50s and 60s 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 okay. 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 Weldon Spring site which is another of these Nuclear Contamination sites. You have totally ownership of that. When is it going to be fully remediated. So the response weve got for you lays out the history. I know the history, when is it going to be remediated. Department of Energy Created in the 70s, precursor agencies responsible for the kinds of time periods youre talking about and we lay that history out, just from our records and happy to go into any level of detail what the government did, 30, 40, 50 years ago based on our record along those lines. Were very focused on the creek. Ive got a map here right in front of me looking at all the schools and others in the vicinity of the watershed and the creek area and have asked our Legacy Management team. When it the Weldon Springs site, which is squarely under your jurisdiction, when is it going to be remediated. Ill have to get back on that. Did you not think id ask about that today . Ive written to you about it multiple times. Were happy senator in a hearing or you were before me in february and you said ill have a bunch of conversations and get back to you. Its september. Now youre saying ill have a bunch of conversations and ill get back to you. Are we going to be having this conversation again in six months or nine months. I can get you that information for you today and. Today would be good. Ill get that. Glad were in an open forum here, lets get that done and a date fixed for Weldon Springs. And wonder what he was talking about an Elementary School a second ago, thats because, yeah, 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. 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 just about every person on that side of the dias voted for it and i thank you, senator luhan worked on this. And its vitally important for folks to get compensated for whats happened to them. Do you agree with that. Do you to compensate the victims. The intent behind the legislation, the department of justice thats the Relevant Agency here. I cant speak for them or the legislation as a whole. You wont agree with the president . You wont agree with the president . Ill always agree with the president. Let me ask you again, do you support the legislation to compensate the victims of this Nuclear Contamination radioactive waste . Ill leave it to the president to speak about policy about this. Pause for a second, for the first round and well come back for the second round. Thank you. Senator cantwell. Thank you, mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this important and timely hearing over the recess. I held an ai forum in seattle, northwest laboratory showcased the Rapid Analytics for response, a tool detection for all hazards and important it was used to assist in both ukraine and some of the maui aftermath. Others in the Allen Institute for environment have demonstrated how theyre using satellite to improve wildfire management important for us in the Pacific Northwest and detect Illegal Fishing in our maritime sector, very important for 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 ai for competitiveness. The United States cannot, cannot slow down on ai as it relates to our competitiveness, internationally and for National Security reasons. So, our National Labs have assisted us in Super Computers, reliable and robust data sets, u. S. 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 u. S. Leadership in this issue. Secretary deputy secretary turk and also, i believe, mr. Stevens, you mentioned labs, Super Computers are positioned to create the tools for Risk Assessment to evaluate ai systems. So how do we get both mist and doe working together on the tool assessments in determining what our true Risk Assessments so theyre identified . What do we need to do to help build a work force, particularly in scaling the work force for ai . And either one, dr. Stevens or mr. Turk, either one of you want to start, it doesnt matter. Go ahead, professor, you start and ill bat cleanup. So were having good conversations about partnering in how to take the assets of doe and connect them to the analytical and concept actual framework working on ai management. Thats an ongoing conversation. Theyre participating in working groups that weve established across the laboratories that are working on how well do Risk Assessment to are large ai models. So, i believe that part is already moving and i feel quite positive about where thats going. In terms of the work force, i think the young people are hungry to work on ai. 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 on ai is going to be oversubscribed. So i think what we have to do, we have to provide enough resources that any student in the u. S. Who wants to make a meaningful contribution to ai in the National Interest has an opportunity to be funded to go to school, to go to graduate school, to do unternship and to participate and thats going to require multiple agencies cooperating and do we support students and students internships, but in a limited number, and can do it in a much larger number and the agency as well. We need a National Coordinated strategy to build an ai work force and we need leadership to organize that. Okay. I have two things to add. Boy, what a gem weve got when it comes to ai and Everything Else in the Pacific Northwest national lab, whether its ai on a drought study or Vaccine Development like example after example coming out of the lab study with argonne and other National Labs as well. I think the Interagency Partnership here is going to be absolutely key. Professor stevens outlined what were doing and we into to do more with the risk framework along those lines. Its noaa, agency after agency that weve got good partnerships with and i think because we have the exo scale computing power, because we have data, because we have the other facilities that you, not only with your role in this committee, but your role as chair of the Commerce Committee as well has been working for so many years to make sure weve got these capabilities to help work with partners throughout the interagency. We need to leverage that and take advantage of that. Do you agree with dr. Stevens about the work force issue . Completely agree and rightful for you to ask questions, senator hirono, we all need the work force. Ive talked to a number of folks that want to work in ai and the private sector and we need talent in the private sector and they also want to work in the government and work on public challenges. We need to make it attractive to them to make them compete. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Senator. Thank you, mr. Chair. Secretary turk, you note that china is, you know, working very diligently to copy and take a lot of the capabilities and research that is being developed at our National Laboratories. How much, 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 that they know that, you know, that information isnt going from employees to china or are there actors that, you know, have adverse interests to our country . Well, thanks for the question. And the answer is, we need to be very aware and we need to have a layered strategy to deal with these security challenges. So weve put in place specific prohibitions. Worked in a foreign Talent Program in china, but its not just china then you cant work in a department of energy lab. Weve got specific restrictions in place where we see particular risk. Secondly, weve adopted and now annually updating something called our science and Technology Risk matrix this looks at particularly sensitive technologist, ai is one of the particularly sensitive technologies. Were looking at thats sensitive technologist in particular. And weve got coverage in the laboratory looking at all, and running down all leads along those lines. But we want to attract top talent in our National Labs and expertise coming and public and private sector. And many ph. D. s come in our labs and stay more than five years so we 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 it over time. You kind of went into my text question. Then what about people that leave, get recruited away . You know, because theyve got all of that Incredible Knowledge and what if they get recruited to, you know, either a rogue actor or a country like china or somebody that then is trying to get the information that way . Theyre just hiring them away from you. Well, its not just happening with chinese nationals. Other countries nationally recruited elsewhere, also, so weve got to be eyes wide open on the front end, right, if theres a particular risk of an individual that we think could take some of their experience they learn in a national lab and take it to china or russia or others that mean us challenge in the world then weve got to have restrictions and those kinds of screens in place, just as i mentioned, along those lines. And then weve got to, you know, balance the benefits that we get from all of these worldclass talents coming here with the risks that we are going to have from some folks deciding that they want to go work elsewhere, they want to take what they learned and take it elsewhere so weve just got to be very vigilant and a very layered approach. Weve empowered a group of experts across the labs in headquarters to make sure were continually improving not only our risk matrix, but how we do things generally. Its a challenge. A real challenge. You need the talent, but screen it on the front end and careful not to lose it on the back end, incredibly difficult. Incredibly difficult. Along, in a similar way, but a little different, i want to ask both miss paglesi and doctor, what about flatout copy. You develop something how about flatout copying it. Iran with drones, just other countries, too, copying the technology, they may be inferior and copying. How do you prevent rogue actors from doing that kind of thing or can you. Senator, thats very difficult. China made a living off copying and stealing our stuff. Id like to actually have a couple of comments on your first question because its important. Sure, with the permission the chairman is gone, so, yeah, go crazy. Go wild. [laughter] exactly. Im sitting in for the chairman. Oh, oh, take it all back. Fellow governor, weve got to mind our ps and qs. Copying is very much a challenge, but its the technological know how, i think, a lot of our existing communication strategy is focused on things, right, something that is tangible. Its the technological knowhow, how do do something, you can copy something and still dont know what it means. Thats the talent piece. Our system isnt set up for this particular challenge that we have today. Were pretty much were set up just like we look for intelligence officers, look for a direct military end use and we have very narrow laws around 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 thats going to be an ongoing challenge we think about how do we find ways that we still enhance and keep investing in that early Development Cycle work, which is an essential part of the lab. And while at the same time finding ways to protect that and then that kind of gets at the work force, that gets at technological knowhow. How do we then, you know, find new ways to face this challenge. I could tell youve been thinking about it. Its good that youre very thoughtful about that and i appreciate that. Thank you. I can tell something youre working on and thats good. Thank you very much. Thank you, senator. We have senator kelly. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Dr. Stevens, were going through a sort of unprecedented period of drought in the west, worst drought as far as we can tell in 1200 years, been going on for 20 years. This summer rather hot, you know, its always hot in the desert, but we had unprecedented number of days in phoenix, especially over 110 degrees and you know, weve had wildfires, 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 on these 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. So obviously the potential of Artificial Intelligence here, now, cant be overstated with its ability to analyze large data sets rather quickly and accurately and to predict things. Cal fire is conducting a Pilot Program using ai to help with the Early Detection of wildfires. So my question to you is twofold. Can you first elaborate on the current initiatives and advancements here with using ai for wild lane firefighting, if there is any going on . And then secondly, a little bit about looking ahead to how your laboratory envisions collaborating with other Government Agencies in the private sector . Sure. So, thanks for that question. So were quite familiar with the cal fire efforts and our colleagues in san diego who have been involved in Building Technology for that. Its a really challenging problem. As you know, fires start with smoke, often. And ai trying to detect from cameras on mountain tops and from other vantage points early examples of fire often get confused by fog, or by doctors stirring up dust or Something Like that. So theres a read to really improve the ai ago get algorithms, and as well as visible light imaging and realize its going to take some time to fully deploy ai and reengineer how the processes in cal fire and the whole teams will use that ai to be more efficient. Ultimately, the ai can put more computerbased eyeballs on the territories than the humans could look at the monitors and so on. I think the longterm impact of ai in firefighting and Disaster Management in general is going to be huge. Ai can synthesize from remote, from satellites, from on ground, from reports of people texting or tweeting, or cameras and from the workers, the firefighters on the ground into a Common Data Base and thats critically important. The National Labs have been trying to model and simulate fire in the west, in particular los alamos has been trying to predict the fire, and flammable material in the forest. I think that all the National Laboratories are interested in helping with management and work at pnl, argonne, los alamos. I think how we partner between the state and local that often have the responsibility for this into a structure that really advances both ai, but also takes a practice practical thing. And not only this, but focus on what works. Do you know the specifics of the ai algorithm and are they trying to incorporate lightning detection into it because obviously a lot of forest fires start with lightning. Absolutely. We know where lightning occurs. We can detect lightning through the electromagnetic stuff and overlay that on the geographical map and overlap with imagery so im quite familiar with how thats done. I dont think its fully integrated yet. I think we can do better than were currently doing. Then you could narrow the field. Absolutely, if theres a history of lightning and youre seeing smoke. Exactly. Well, thank you. Senator, you want to defer to senator king . Senator hickenlooper, you all fight it out. Thank you, mr. Chair. Thank you for your time here today, i think its a fascinating discussion. I want to start with mr. Wheeler, we have a company that does training for Large Companies at walmart or chipotle, that their employees want to take skillsbased classes at colleges or universities, wherever. And gild does polling of entry level engineers and coders across professions and recently one of their most recent poll saw a dramatic increase by near universal in the level of concern expressed at ai to these beginning level engineers, of course, every industry and every industry, of are course, needs technology. And i think this, you know, the intense Computing Resources that are needed to train and run ai models at scale raise a lot of questions youre already addressing. Enrail out in colorado operates a High Performance computing data center thats 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, recognizing that theres a level of anxiety that has, you know, come up in terms of the work force . Yeah, thanks for the question, senator hooken looper. Im very familiar with the facility and some of the machines there and colorado is my home state and i think that theres kind of multiple, multiple ways to look at this. So i think as you say, all of the excitement around ai. Theres a lot of people wanting to get into that as, you know, maybe theyre transitioning careers, but understandably, you know, concerned with some of the risk around it. We have a, you know, something we see internally a lot is, you know, look, ai is not going to replace that scientist or that engineer, you know, editor, teacher, you name it, the list goes on. But those same individuals, those same professionals that harness ai and use ai will likely replace those that dont. So thats why i think from a work force and a transition were seeing many people wanting to get into that as a career. So they recognize the opportunity and the great thing about gild is, you know, maybe theyre not taking people that historically came up from a stem background or education, but guess what . With all of the tools, everything thats being developed, you know, 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 are in place . Or how do we think about some of the risk associated with the technology . You asked about, you know, what other things can be done, you know, with i think enrow is a great example of showcasing 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 youve got a passion around that as a field of study how to, you know, mitigate some of the risk around this, well, having access, you know, enables to you, you know, to develop and propose those types of solutions. Thank you for that. Ms. Puglisi, a lot of the innovations that come from ai come from fundamental and applied research thats adopted by Small Businesses and in your testimony you highlight about how investing in Research Supports our countrys technological leadership. How have all the historic investments into transitional grow our work force and our economy . I think those documents are essential because i think what gets lost a lot of times are those transition points and so weve put we focus on 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, it looks at those transition points and how do we move technology so that best serves the public and best serves society and so, having those kind of skills is very different kind of skills than actually doing the research, but having that support across what we call the valley of death or other kind of challenges are really, i think, important to kind of keep that spark going. Thank you for that. I appreciate and ill yield. Senator king, ill wander over and make sure that that is covered if youll take a couple extra minutes. Appreciate it. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I wanted to put a fine point on this. A few minutes ago, i put into chat gpt the following question. Right a poem about joe manchin and John Barrasso. In less than three seconds, this is what it wrote. In Senate Chambers where voices resound joe manchin and John Barrasso are found. Two different paths they often pursue, but united by a role they must construe. Manchin a democrat from West Virginias coalfilled mills. He seeks compromise in a divided senate he find his place. Barrasso, a republi deeply ingrains, his vision for policy distinct and clear in the halls of congress, he per ser veers. Though their ideologies often diverge, in the senate they debate, discuss and urge. For the common goods for constituents, hearts on fire. Two senators distinct in view led bound by a duty in democracys they play their part and determined with heart. Make sure they dont eliminate that part of the ai. [laughter] but think of that in less than two seconds, the data that was searched to put that together and make it rhyme and put it together with our two senators. I think we realize the unbelievable part of this, thats part of a homely example, but i 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 as you know is one of the major issues of our time is isos timeliness of processing applications for connection to the grid. Theres a huge backlog in virtually all the isos in the country. Can ai contribute . Because it seems to me that decision about interconnection, which involved capacity, reliability, safety, that strikes me as an engineering question that ai should be helpful with. I think the short answer is yes, and ive been speaking to the heads of isos and really trying to make sure that were doing everything we can on the interconnection queue which is a big deal right now. If you cant get things connected to the grid were not going to achieve our goals and get the benefit from technologies. Right now the queue is one of the major bottle necks to this transition. The queue and the queues with different iso is a mainly bottle neck, thats exactly right. Theres a number of efforts that are being undertaken right now the ferq has put out rules making sure its not just first in who gets consideration, but first read and applications of those most impactful. I hope youll take steps to use ai to radically shorten this process. I think that would be a major i think it would be great. I wanted to highlight i2x, the acronym, using technology among other things that try to bring the isos together and Software Fixes and ai fixes. Happy to get you that and its an exciting effort. The word watermarking is earlier. I dont want the government deciding whats true and not true. Thats just not the way, 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 has a right to know its source. Mr. Stevens, you mentioned watermarking, what were really talking about for me its labeling. This film or this article was produced with ai. That would be Important Information for people to have in assessing the validity of what theyre seeing. Is that how close are we to having that technology . We know how to do it. Its a question of getting agreement that ai companies would use some kind of common approach and not some proprietary approach and then also how we enforce or acquire it. I was going to say, could congress acquire the platform, ai material has 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 ai. Some of which will be the Big Companies like google and open ai and so forth. There will be many, many open models produced outside the United States and produced elsewhere of course that wouldnt be bound by a u. S. Regulation and 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 watermark ai generated content, but a rogue player outside the u. S. , say hospitaling in russia and china wouldnt be bound by that and wouldnt produce a ton of materials that would have the watermarks and i think were going to have to be more nuanced and 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, if its produced by real humans in a real meeting. That stream 0 would get tagged versus something thats real. Im out of time and due over to preside, but if all of you would, because this is a Current Issue for us, weve got a major election coming up in a little over a year. Disinformation via ai could play a pivotal role. We need your best thinking now. So, to the extent you can get back to this committee on these subjects, would be very, very helpful to us, thank you. Let me tell you, i dont need to tell you how informative and interesting this has been, what weve received and everyone told you what were concerned about. My good friend here found something very complimentary and appreciated very much, but he probably could have found something very concerning and harmful very quickly, also. I think the first line of defense im looking at, im concerned about is how do we protect from altering peoples lives and thats basically their compensation, whether it be at their workplace or if theyre retired, retirement checks, social security, medicare. How well are we hardened there or basically preventing ai to figuring to come through another door, back door, side door, anything differently that could put them at risk changing or altering their lives, 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 in investment portfolios, theyre doing this all the time trying and makes it difficult and its good enough when someone gets your credit card hacked and stolen what they have to go through to get that corrected. Can you only imagine what this could do. This is what were asking you with the knowledge and expertise and also the challenges that were going to have. I know we think about defense. We have been talking armed services, about offense versus defense. Were already using ai in defensive procedures now, but offensively we still want that Human Element involved to make a decision. Do we launch a strike or not. Thats going to be very, very detrimental and very important has unbelievable farreaching results. So i think were in Uncharted Waters to a certain extent, but those of you ahead of the curve can help us really from falling into the deep end and cant be saved. If weve learned anything about the internet we learned that for all the good it did, there are people waiting to use it for nefarious situations and they do it every day. And with that thank you very much, i think youve done a wonderful job presenting this and you can see the interest that we have and the concerns that we have and i think the support that you have from all of us, making sure every dollar that invest, we have to invest an awful lot, well do that, but dont want to reinvent the wheel. Balance it out and run a little smoother. Were here to help, but again, thank you so much. And members will have until the close of business tomorrow to submit additional questions for the record. Thank you, and the meeting is adjourned. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] cspan is your unfiltered view of government who are funded by these Television Companies and more, including spark light. The greatest town on earth is the place you call home. At sparklight its our home, too. Right now were facing our greatest challenge. Thats why sparklight is working around the clock to keep you connected. Were doing our part so its a little easier to do yours. Sparklight supports cspan as a public service, along with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. Coming up today, live, on the cspan networks. At 10 a. M. Eastern on cspan the head of the securities and Exchange Commission gary gensler. Answer they return for legislation imposed sanctions on iran for the missile and drone program. On cspan2, the senate is back to consider more of president bidens judicial dominations, in the afternoon to advance a 2024 spending bill ahead of a deadline to fund the government. Cspan 3, illinoiss secretary a hearing. And then 2 30, hearing on leg rating Artificial Intelligence and these are on the cspan video app or online at cspan. Org. Alabama republican senator Tommy Tuberville is calling for a floor vote this month on joint chiefs of staff chair mark milleys replacement. He has been locking