The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has recently unveiled its Artificial Intelligence Safety and Security Board, drawing significant attention not only for its prominent members but also for notable omissions and potential biases.
The new board, chaired by DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, is comprised of 22 leaders from various sectors tasked with advising on the secure and responsible development and deployment of AI in the nation's critical infrastructure.
Mayorkas personally selected the board members, emphasizing their expertise and understanding of the implications of implementing AI in critical infrastructure. The inaugural members include Sam Altman (CEO, OpenAI), Dario Amodei (CEO and Co-Founder, Anthropic), Satya Nadella (Chairman and CEO, Microsoft), Jensen Huang (CEO of NVIDIA) and Sundar Pichai (CEO, Alphabet), among other technology executives, civil rights leaders, academics, and policymakers. These appointments reflect a clear focus on the input from major AI and technology firms.
However, from another perspective, the board's composition could appear to lean too heavily towards corporate interests with executives from Occidental Petroleum, Cisco, Northrop Grumman, Google, Microsoft, AWS, IBM and others. Given the board's focus on practical solutions, composing it primarily of corporate giants who may stand to directly benefit financially from decisions could lead to potential regulatory capture.
Additionally, the exclusion of an executive from Meta (the leading provider of open AI models), Elon Musk (CEO of Tesla and xAI), and other influential voices in the AI community is curious. Mayorkas defended the selection, stating his intention to include key AI developers, and specifically choosing not to include social media companies.
The board's formation comes as part of DHS's ongoing efforts to respond to the rapid emergence of AI technology, including the release of its first "Artificial Intelligence Roadmap" in March 2024 and the establishment of the AI Task Force last year. DHS also named Michael Boyce as the director of its new AI Corps, an initiative aimed at recruiting 50 AI experts to lead high-priority projects across the department.
The board will convene for the first time in early May, with subsequent meetings planned quarterly. Its recommendations will help DHS stay ahead of evolving threats posed by hostile nation-state actors and reinforce national security by helping to deter and prevent those threats.