On July 21, 2023, the Biden administration announced that seven companies leading the development of artificial intelligence (AI) — Amazon, Anthropic, Google, Inflection, Meta, Microsoft, and OpenAI — have made voluntary commitments, which the companies agreed to undertake immediately, to help move towards safe, secure, and transparent development of AI technology. The goal of the voluntary commitments, or the “AI Agreement” as it is informally dubbed, is to establish a set of standards that promote the principles of safety, security, and trust deemed fundamental to the future of AI.
Watchdog Says: DoD Needs Department-Wide AI Acquisition Guidance




On June 29, 2023, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released its second report[1] on Department of Defense (DoD) artificial intelligence (AI) acquisition efforts. This latest report examines the DoD’s lack of formal AI acquisition guidance and identifies key principles from the private sector that can be applied to the DoD’s AI acquisition efforts.
Although…
Fastest 5 Minutes: TikTok, Artificial Intelligence, SAM


This week’s episode covers the interim FAR provision that prohibits the presence or use of TikTok on certain types of contractor IT, the updated version of the National Artificial Intelligence Research and Development Strategic Plan, and a Court of Federal Claims decision involving the awardee’s failure to maintain its SAM registration during the proposal evaluation…
Fastest 5 Minutes: Antitrust, AI


This week’s episode covers allegations of procurement collusion, a civil lawsuit filed by DOJ to enjoin an acquisition because of competition concerns, and a DOD report on Responsible Artificial Intelligence Strategy and Implementation Pathway, and is hosted by Peter Eyre and Yuan Zhou. Crowell & Moring’s “Fastest 5 Minutes” is a biweekly podcast that provides…
DIU Issues Step-by-Step Guidelines for Defense Stakeholders to Responsibly Use AI





On November 15, 2021, the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) released its Responsible Artificial Intelligence (AI) Guidelines (“RAI Guidelines”) to help contractors and federal officials gauge whether AI technology and programs align with the Department of Defense’s (DoD) Ethical Principles for AI (as we previously reported on here). Specifically, the RAI Guidelines provide a process…
Advancing America’s Dominance in AI: The 2021 National Defense Authorization Act’s AI Developments





On January 1, 2021, the 116th Congress enacted the Fiscal Year 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which established, among other things, the National Artificial Intelligence Initiative Act of 2020 (Division E, Title LI, §§ 5101-5106) (hereinafter “the Initiative”), a program to award financial assistance to National Artificial Intelligence Research Institutes (Division E, Title LII,…
Executive Order 13960 Establishes Government-wide Principles for its Use of AI





On December 3, 2020, the President issued Executive Order 13960, Promoting the Use of Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence in the Federal Government. The Executive Order signals yet again the Federal Government’s emphasis on the use of AI and the importance of ensuring that AI is used in a manner that does not violate Americans’ privacy,…
DoD’s Joint Artificial Intelligence Center Seeks Tools to Test Artificial Intelligence



Consistent with the U.S. Department of Defense’s (DoD) Artificial Intelligence (AI) Strategy, as we previously reported on here, on April 13, 2020, DOD published a Request for Information (RFI) requesting assistance from academia and industry with the development and planning of a potential new requirement for DOD’s Joint Artificial Intelligence Center’s (JAIC) Testing &…
The JAIC Rolls Out DoD’s Ethical Principles for Artificial Intelligence




On February 24, 2020, following Secretary of Defense Mark Esper’s call on the private sector to work with the Department of Defense (DoD) to develop principles for using Artificial Intelligence (AI) in a “lawful and ethical manner,” (as we previously reported on here), the DoD announced its adoption of ethical principles for AI. The…
The U.S. Announces Endorsement of OECD’s Principles for Responsible AI




Following the announcement of the White House’s Executive Order on Maintaining American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence (EO) and the Department of Defense’s (DOD) Artificial Intelligence Strategy (AI Strategy) in February, as reported on here, the United States recently endorsed the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development Council’s (OECD) Recommendation on Artificial Intelligence (Recommendation) –…