Federal IT Policy, Agency Clamor Pushing Wind Into AI's Sails – MeriTalk

Artificial intelligence (AI), following on the heels of its older sibling RPA (robotic process automation), is no longer waiting to be born, but remains more of a toddler on the Federal IT scene–still learning to walk before trying to run, but bulking up from an appetite for serious Federal government tech interest and investment. Factors that stand in the way of rapid growth in use of the technology may be fairly said to include inertia, budget, lack of understanding, scarcity of obvious projects, insufficient compute power (legacy data centers), and a dearth of large data sets necessary to leverage the technology. But a host of Federal IT policy aims and nascent efforts at agencies are providing plenty of push for the AI Age to kick into higher gear, and point to what may become before too long the largest factor in shying away from AI: a lack of imagination. From the military, to the intelligence community, to civilian agencies, the growth in stated demand for AI projects is impossible to ignore. Intelligence agency officials ticked off a partial list of AI projects and priorities they'd like to pursue, and identified important long-term benefits from getting into the game including drastically reducing the amount of time analysts spend on lower-level monitoring work, and creating a workforce culture that is more comfortable with taking chances on new technology.