The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) became the first federal agency in the United States to embrace artificial intelligence.

DHS on Monday, March 18, published a roadmap containing plans for the use of AI in three pilot projects. One of these projects provides that Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) will introduce artificial intelligence to detect fentanyl in the context of tasks to combat the illegal exploitation of children.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) will use machine intelligence to help communities reduce danger. The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) will apply artificial intelligence in the training of immigration officers.

DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, during a conversation with media representatives, said that machine intelligence cannot be ignored. According to him, in this case, it is important to act quickly.

The media reports that as part of the pilot projects, DHS will cooperate with such well-known players in the technology sector as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta. It is also known that the department plans to hire 50 artificial intelligence experts to protect critical infrastructure from AI attacks. Moreover, DHS intends to make efforts to prevent the use of artificial intelligence in scenarios involving the generation of content containing scenes of child abuse or the development of biological weapons.

The department also plans to use chatbots to train immigration officials to conduct interviews with refugees or asylum seekers. Moreover, chatbots will be applied to glean information about communities across the country. This use case is intended to assist in creating disaster response plans.

The DHA will release the results of the pilot projects by the end of 2024. Eric Hysen, the department’s chief information officer and head of AI, said this during a conversation with media representatives. He also noted that experiments related to the application of artificial intelligence tools will be carried out within the framework of cooperation with OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta. Moreover, the department will use the services of cloud providers Microsoft, Google, and Amazon as part of pilot projects. According to him, individual efforts are impossible in this case. Eric Hysen says that DHS needs to work with the private sector to help define the responsible use of generative artificial intelligence.

Last year, the White House launched several initiatives designed to regulate AI. In this case, it means the United States AI Safety Institute (AISI) and the Department of Commerce program to develop technical guidelines used by regulators.

In 2023, US President Joe Biden issued an executive order aimed at promoting the development of secure artificial intelligence and implying that the creators of the most powerful advanced technology systems should submit the results of their security tests and other important information to the government.

It is worth noting that the perception of AI in society is ambiguous. There is a point of view according to which artificial intelligence is not the driving force of positive transformation, but the source of annihilation and destruction. It is worth noting that there are potential risks associated with the use of artificial intelligence, but these negative aspects should not be exaggerated to the scale of a universal catastrophe and perceived as a source of elimination of human civilization or excessive damage.

There are also concerns related to the fact that AI will deprive many people of their jobs. Shawn Daly, a professor at Niagara University, says that artificial intelligence needs people and will need them for a long time.

As we have reported earlier, FTC Says About Increase in AI-Related Scams on Social Media.