Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is an AI guy. Last week, during a stop in Nashville on his Take Back Your Health tour, the Health and Human Services secretary brought up the technology between condemning ultra-processed foods and urging Americans to eat protein. "My agency is now leading the federal government in driving AI into all of our activities," he declared. An army of bots, Kennedy said, will transform medicine, eliminate fraud, and put a virtual doctor in everyone's pocket. RFK Jr. has talked up the promise of infusing his department with AI for months.

The annual meeting of the International Society for Autism Research took place in Seattle this week. The field's premiere scientific conference was scheduled to be held in the Emerald City five years ago, until COVID-19 dashed those plans. This time, U.S. autism researchers face a very different kind of crisis: massive cuts to federal funding, Cabinet members making false statements about the complex neurological condition they study, and a series of confusing and potentially worrisome policy announcements about autism research. In April, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services disclosed that it's planning a 50-million "comprehensive research effort aimed at understanding the causes of [autism spectrum disorder] and improving treatments," a department spokesperson said. The effort was spurred by Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s stated goal of determining the cause of autism, a neurological and developmental condition whose symptoms cluster around challenges with communication, social interaction and sensory processing.

AI software company C3.ai (NYSE:AI) and software services firm CITI have been awarded a joint $90M, five-year contract from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The blanket purchase agreement will expedite enterprise AI deployments across the entire HHS. The agreement enables various HHS agencies and missions to select C3 AI (AI) solutions to support data-driven work. Specifically, it enables HHS officials to procure C3 AI applications, C3 AI's AI platform for data collection, analysis with machine learning, and predictive AI capabilities and CITI services. The BPA allows HHS officials to procure CITI services, C3 AI applications, and C3 AI's secure and powerful AI platform for data collection, analysis with machine learning, and predictive AI capabilities.

The Department of Health and Human Services is developing an artificial intelligence playbook to help teams overcome common obstacles and challenges that come with implementing AI technologies. HHS Chief AI Officer Oki Mek discussed the playbook and how it plays into his overall priority of making AI a collaboratively cultivated technology at the agency during a NextGov event July 29. He said that one of the elements that he hopes to include in the playbook is to help with barriers to data acquisition, which he added is especially difficult within HHS. "Having a playbook could really help in terms of, what are the obstacles that you will encounter when you go on this AI, machine learning journey, because the two biggest obstacles are really the data acquisition, getting the data, especially with Health and Human Services because health records and data are very heavily regulated, so data acquisition will be tough," Mek said. "We could help provide some guidance and some lessons learned, some best practices around that." Mek added that the playbook could also provide some guidance around cleaning data, since cleaning and processing data is a big component of getting it ready for AI usage. The playbook will also provide definitions around AI, which Mek argued is a broad term that can have different meanings and applications.

"[You have to] have a definition of AI, machine learning, you can go into NLP, deep learning and what is the difference between AI …

Machine Learning also provides a great tool to conduct predictive analysis to understand risk and plan accordingly, and in some cases provides …

Many governments worldwide are looking at using Artificial Intelligence (AI) and other cognitive technologies as part of making their operations more efficient, better serving their citizens, and increasing the range of ways they can meet their missions. It's no surprise then that the US Government and forward thinking leadership is making investments into AI technologies. Additionally, some agencies such as the US Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) are also seeing how other emerging technologies such as blockchain can help. Jose Arrieta, the CIO at the US Department of Health & Human Services (HHS), interviewed on a recent AI Today podcast episode while he was the associate Deputy Assistant Secretary for Acquisition at HHS is one such leader who sees how AI and blockchain can have a big impact at the agency. He became a program manager to build IT systems to use machine learning to analyze biographical information about people.

In 2019 HHS, the largest privately-owned support services company in the U.S., made history – the first that will deploy a fleet of Avidbots Neo floor-scrubbing robots in hospitals. It began several years earlier. The healthcare facilities management industry – among HHS' key markets – was in a state of flux and custodial services were feeling the squeeze. As medical facilities sought ways to reduce overhead, patient support functions like housekeeping and custodial were natural targets. HHS was being asked to do more with less.

Federal artificial intelligence (AI) technology leaders agreed today that a human-centered approach to data management and automation generates stakeholder buy-in and improves agencywide perceptions of AI projects. At CXO Tech Forum: AI and Robotics Process Automation (RPA) in Government on Dec. 5, government officials speaking on several panels emphasized the importance of human-centered design in the development of AI capabilities. Anil Tilbe, Director of Enterprise Measurement and Design at the Veterans Experience Office (VEO), said that human-centered design is "extremely important" in AI development. "Using human-centered design, you're prioritizing human intelligence," he said. At VEO, Tilbe and his team are using information gathered from veterans and Veterans Affairs employees to build the AI environment.

Artificial intelligence can help transform health care by improving diagnosis, treatment, the delivery of patient care, and the efficiency of healthcare systems. But AI is only as good as the data it's built on. AI developers in the health sector are facing multiple challenges including limited access to health data, poor data quality, and concerns over the ethical use of data for AI. The Office of the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is now exploring the potential for a departmentwide AI strategy to facilitate the development of AI for health. As one important first step, the HHS Office of the CTO and the Center for Open Data Enterprise (CODE) co-hosted a roundtable in April to gather input from stakeholders outside of HHS.