White House Science Policy Leader Cites Dangers, Opportunities at Presidential Forum

Artificial Intelligence (AI) one day could be deployed to discriminate against housing loan applicants, surveil computer users and circulate deep fakes to distort reality on a massive scale. Or it could be “a stable platform that we can stand on to reach for the stars,” the White House’s science chief told an audience of Terps on Wednesday.

Generative AI “is the most powerful and consequential technology of our time,” said Arati Prabhakar, the head of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, to a packed room in the Samuel Riggs IV Alumni Center. She called on the audience to harness it for good—improving drug design, delivering better weather forecasts and closing the education gap, for example.

Prabhakar was the featured guest at the latest Presidential Distinguished Forum, part of University of Maryland President Darryll J. Pines’ “Grand Challenges of Our Time” course for first-year students, which has featured a range of scientists, writers, businesspeople and activists since Pines introduced it four years ago.

Prabhakar, who began in her role in 2022, has advised President Joe Biden on how developments in cybersecurity, quantum science and a host of other high-tech topics impact the United States and its relations with allies and adversaries.

During her remarks, she also focused on a pair of challenges in addition to AI that will impact society in the next decades: health—ranging from curing deadly diseases to fighting pandemics to ensuring safe drinking water—and climate change. Those topics are “at the heart of the University of Maryland community and all of the research, innovation and outreach that happens here on our Do Good campus,” Pines said as he welcomed Prabhakar to the stage.

An electrical engineer by training, Prabhakar previously led the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Pentagon’s arm for sometimes far-out tech research and development of futuristic weapons systems. (Pines himself served as a DARPA program manager from 2003 to 2006.)

During a question-and-answer session informed by queries from faculty and students, Pines asked her to dive further into ethical parameters of AI. He relayed an anecdote about a colleague—a person of color—who couldn’t open a bank account because a chatbot couldn’t process her passport. “These are the unintended consequences of AI,” Pines said.

[UMD Launches Institute Focused on Ethical AI Development]

Faulty facial recognition, including law enforcement errors that result in unjust arrests, is “unbearable,” Prabhakar agreed. But she compared its misuse with beneficial applications, using TSA airport precheck as an example. That process is voluntary and narrow, and images are deleted immediately.

“Now, you zip through those lines,” she said. “We’ve got the efficiency because we got the technology right. That’s where we need to go.”