Biden Charges Federal Government Agencies to Adopt AI

Advancing Federal Government Use of AI.

10.1.  Providing Guidance for AI Management.  (a)  To coordinate the use of AI across the Federal Government, within 60 days of the date of this order and on an ongoing basis as necessary, the Director of OMB shall convene and chair an interagency council to coordinate the development and use of AI in agencies’ programs and operations, other than the use of AI in national security systems.  The Director of OSTP shall serve as Vice Chair for the interagency council.  The interagency council’s membership shall include, at minimum, the heads of the agencies identified in 31 U.S.C. 901(b), the Director of National Intelligence, and other agencies as identified by the Chair.  Until agencies designate their permanent Chief AI Officers consistent with the guidance described in subsection 10.1(b) of this section, they shall be represented on the interagency council by an appropriate official at the Assistant Secretary level or equivalent, as determined by the head of each agency.

     (b)  To provide guidance on Federal Government use of AI, within 150 days of the date of this order and updated periodically thereafter, the Director of OMB, in coordination with the Director of OSTP, and in consultation with the interagency council established in subsection 10.1(a) of this section, shall issue guidance to agencies to strengthen the effective and appropriate use of AI, advance AI innovation, and manage risks from AI in the Federal Government.  The Director of OMB’s guidance shall specify, to the extent appropriate and consistent with applicable law:

          (i)     the requirement to designate at each agency within 60 days of the issuance of the guidance a Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer who shall hold primary responsibility in their agency, in coordination with other responsible officials, for coordinating their agency’s use of AI, promoting AI innovation in their agency, managing risks from their agency’s use of AI, and carrying out the responsibilities described in section 8(c) of Executive Order 13960 of December 3, 2020 (Promoting the Use of Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence in the Federal Government), and section 4(b) of Executive Order 14091;

          (ii)    the Chief Artificial Intelligence Officers’ roles, responsibilities, seniority, position, and reporting structures;

          (iii)   for the agencies identified in 31 U.S.C. 901(b), the creation of internal Artificial Intelligence Governance Boards, or other appropriate mechanisms, at each agency within 60 days of the issuance of the guidance to coordinate and govern AI issues through relevant senior leaders from across the agency;

          (iv)    required minimum risk-management practices for Government uses of AI that impact people’s rights or safety, including, where appropriate, the following practices derived from OSTP’s Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights and the NIST AI Risk Management Framework:  conducting public consultation; assessing data quality; assessing and mitigating disparate impacts and algorithmic discrimination; providing notice of the use of AI; continuously monitoring and evaluating deployed AI; and granting human consideration and remedies for adverse decisions made using AI;

          (v)     specific Federal Government uses of AI that are presumed by default to impact rights or safety;

          (vi)    recommendations to agencies to reduce barriers to the responsible use of AI, including barriers related to information technology infrastructure, data, workforce, budgetary restrictions, and cybersecurity processes;

          (vii)   requirements that agencies identified in 31 U.S.C. 901(b) develop AI strategies and pursue high-impact AI use cases;

          (viii)  in consultation with the Secretary of Commerce, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and the heads of other appropriate agencies as determined by the Director of OMB, recommendations to agencies regarding:

               (A)  external testing for AI, including AI red-teaming for generative AI, to be developed in coordination with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency;

               (B)  testing and safeguards against discriminatory, misleading, inflammatory, unsafe, or deceptive outputs, as well as against producing child sexual abuse material and against producing non-consensual intimate imagery of real individuals (including intimate digital depictions of the body or body parts of an identifiable individual), for generative AI;

               (C)  reasonable steps to watermark or otherwise label output from generative AI;

               (D)  application of the mandatory minimum risk-management practices defined under subsection 10.1(b)(iv) of this section to procured AI;

               (E)  independent evaluation of vendors’ claims concerning both the effectiveness and risk mitigation of their AI offerings;

               (F)  documentation and oversight of procured AI;

               (G)  maximizing the value to agencies when relying on contractors to use and enrich Federal Government data for the purposes of AI development and operation;

               (H)  provision of incentives for the continuous improvement of procured AI; and

               (I)  training on AI in accordance with the principles set out in this order and in other references related to AI listed herein; and

          (ix)    requirements for public reporting on compliance with this guidance.

     (c)  To track agencies’ AI progress, within 60 days of the issuance of the guidance established in subsection 10.1(b) of this section and updated periodically thereafter, the Director of OMB shall develop a method for agencies to track and assess their ability to adopt AI into their programs and operations, manage its risks, and comply with Federal policy on AI.  This method should draw on existing related efforts as appropriate and should address, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, the practices, processes, and capabilities necessary for responsible AI adoption, training, and governance across, at a minimum, the areas of information technology infrastructure, data, workforce, leadership, and risk management.

     (d)  To assist agencies in implementing the guidance to be established in subsection 10.1(b) of this section:

          (i)   within 90 days of the issuance of the guidance, the Secretary of Commerce, acting through the Director of NIST, and in coordination with the Director of OMB and the Director of OSTP, shall develop guidelines, tools, and practices to support implementation of the minimum risk-management practices described in subsection 10.1(b)(iv) of this section; and

          (ii)  within 180 days of the issuance of the guidance, the Director of OMB shall develop an initial means to ensure that agency contracts for the acquisition of AI systems and services align with the guidance described in subsection 10.1(b) of this section and advance the other aims identified in section 7224(d)(1) of the Advancing American AI Act (Public Law 117-263, div. G, title LXXII, subtitle B).

     (e)  To improve transparency for agencies’ use of AI, the Director of OMB shall, on an annual basis, issue instructions to agencies for the collection, reporting, and publication of agency AI use cases, pursuant to section 7225(a) of the Advancing American AI Act.  Through these instructions, the Director shall, as appropriate, expand agencies’ reporting on how they are managing risks from their AI use cases and update or replace the guidance originally established in section 5 of Executive Order 13960.

     (f)  To advance the responsible and secure use of generative AI in the Federal Government:

          (i)    As generative AI products become widely available and common in online platforms, agencies are discouraged from imposing broad general bans or blocks on agency use of generative AI.  Agencies should instead limit access, as necessary, to specific generative AI services based on specific risk assessments; establish guidelines and limitations on the appropriate use of generative AI; and, with appropriate safeguards in place, provide their personnel and programs with access to secure and reliable generative AI capabilities, at least for the purposes of experimentation and routine tasks that carry a low risk of impacting Americans’ rights.  To protect Federal Government information, agencies are also encouraged to employ risk-management practices, such as training their staff on proper use, protection, dissemination, and disposition of Federal information; negotiating appropriate terms of service with vendors; implementing measures designed to ensure compliance with record-keeping, cybersecurity, confidentiality, privacy, and data protection requirements; and deploying other measures to prevent misuse of Federal Government information in generative AI.

          (ii)   Within 90 days of the date of this order, the Administrator of General Services, in coordination with the Director of OMB, and in consultation with the Federal Secure Cloud Advisory Committee and other relevant agencies as the Administrator of General Services may deem appropriate, shall develop and issue a framework for prioritizing critical and emerging technologies offerings in the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program authorization process, starting with generative AI offerings that have the primary purpose of providing large language model-based chat interfaces, code-generation and debugging tools, and associated application programming interfaces, as well as prompt-based image generators.  This framework shall apply for no less than 2 years from the date of its issuance.  Agency Chief Information Officers, Chief Information Security Officers, and authorizing officials are also encouraged to prioritize generative AI and other critical and emerging technologies in granting authorities for agency operation of information technology systems and any other applicable release or oversight processes, using continuous authorizations and approvals wherever feasible.

          (iii)  Within 180 days of the date of this order, the Director of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), in coordination with the Director of OMB, shall develop guidance on the use of generative AI for work by the Federal workforce.

     (g)  Within 30 days of the date of this order, to increase agency investment in AI, the Technology Modernization Board shall consider, as it deems appropriate and consistent with applicable law, prioritizing funding for AI projects for the Technology Modernization Fund for a period of at least 1 year.  Agencies are encouraged to submit to the Technology Modernization Fund project funding proposals that include AI — and particularly generative AI — in service of mission delivery.

     (h)  Within 180 days of the date of this order, to facilitate agencies’ access to commercial AI capabilities, the Administrator of General Services, in coordination with the Director of OMB, and in collaboration with the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of Homeland Security, the Director of National Intelligence, the Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the head of any other agency identified by the Administrator of General Services, shall take steps consistent with applicable law to facilitate access to Federal Government-wide acquisition solutions for specified types of AI services and products, such as through the creation of a resource guide or other tools to assist the acquisition workforce.  Specified types of AI capabilities shall include generative AI and specialized computing infrastructure.

     (i)  The initial means, instructions, and guidance issued pursuant to subsections 10.1(a)-(h) of this section shall not apply to AI when it is used as a component of a national security system, which shall be addressed by the proposed National Security Memorandum described in subsection 4.8 of this order.

     10.2.  Increasing AI Talent in Government.  (a)  Within 45 days of the date of this order, to plan a national surge in AI talent in the Federal Government, the Director of OSTP and the Director of OMB, in consultation with the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy, the Assistant to the President and Domestic Policy Advisor, and the Assistant to the President and Director of the Gender Policy Council, shall identify priority mission areas for increased Federal Government AI talent, the types of talent that are highest priority to recruit and develop to ensure adequate implementation of this order and use of relevant enforcement and regulatory authorities to address AI risks, and accelerated hiring pathways.

     (b)  Within 45 days of the date of this order, to coordinate rapid advances in the capacity of the Federal AI workforce, the Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, in coordination with the Director of OSTP and the Director of OMB, and in consultation with the National Cyber Director, shall convene an AI and Technology Talent Task Force, which shall include the Director of OPM, the Director of the General Services Administration’s Technology Transformation Services, a representative from the Chief Human Capital Officers Council, the Assistant to the President for Presidential Personnel, members of appropriate agency technology talent programs, a representative of the Chief Data Officer Council, and a representative of the interagency council convened under subsection 10.1(a) of this section.  The Task Force’s purpose shall be to accelerate and track the hiring of AI and AI-enabling talent across the Federal Government, including through the following actions:

          (i)    within 180 days of the date of this order, tracking and reporting progress to the President on increasing AI capacity across the Federal Government, including submitting to the President a report and recommendations for further increasing capacity;

          (ii)   identifying and circulating best practices for agencies to attract, hire, retain, train, and empower AI talent, including diversity, inclusion, and accessibility best practices, as well as to plan and budget adequately for AI workforce needs;

          (iii)  coordinating, in consultation with the Director of OPM, the use of fellowship programs and agency technology-talent programs and human-capital teams to build hiring capabilities, execute hires, and place AI talent to fill staffing gaps; and

          (iv)   convening a cross-agency forum for ongoing collaboration between AI professionals to share best practices and improve retention.

     (c)  Within 45 days of the date of this order, to advance existing Federal technology talent programs, the United States Digital Service, Presidential Innovation Fellowship, United States Digital Corps, OPM, and technology talent programs at agencies, with support from the AI and Technology Talent Task Force described in subsection 10.2(b) of this section, as appropriate and permitted by law, shall develop and begin to implement plans to support the rapid recruitment of individuals as part of a Federal Government-wide AI talent surge to accelerate the placement of key AI and AI-enabling talent in high-priority areas and to advance agencies’ data and technology strategies.

     (d)  To meet the critical hiring need for qualified personnel to execute the initiatives in this order, and to improve Federal hiring practices for AI talent, the Director of OPM, in consultation with the Director of OMB, shall:

          (i)     within 60 days of the date of this order, conduct an evidence-based review on the need for hiring and workplace flexibility, including Federal Government-wide direct-hire authority for AI and related data-science and technical roles, and, where the Director of OPM finds such authority is appropriate, grant it; this review shall include the following job series at all General Schedule (GS) levels:  IT Specialist (2210), Computer Scientist (1550), Computer Engineer (0854), and Program Analyst (0343) focused on AI, and any subsequently developed job series derived from these job series;

          (ii)    within 60 days of the date of this order, consider authorizing the use of excepted service appointments under 5 C.F.R. 213.3102(i)(3) to address the need for hiring additional staff to implement directives of this order;

          (iii)   within 90 days of the date of this order, coordinate a pooled-hiring action informed by subject-matter experts and using skills-based assessments to support the recruitment of AI talent across agencies;

          (iv)    within 120 days of the date of this order, as appropriate and permitted by law, issue guidance for agency application of existing pay flexibilities or incentive pay programs for AI, AI-enabling, and other key technical positions to facilitate appropriate use of current pay incentives;

          (v)     within 180 days of the date of this order, establish guidance and policy on skills-based, Federal Government-wide hiring of AI, data, and technology talent in order to increase access to those with nontraditional academic backgrounds to Federal AI, data, and technology roles;

          (vi)    within 180 days of the date of this order, establish an interagency working group, staffed with both human-resources professionals and recruiting technical experts, to facilitate Federal Government-wide hiring of people with AI and other technical skills;

          (vii)   within 180 days of the date of this order, review existing Executive Core Qualifications (ECQs) for Senior Executive Service (SES) positions informed by data and AI literacy competencies and, within 365 days of the date of this order, implement new ECQs as appropriate in the SES assessment process;

          (viii)  within 180 days of the date of this order, complete a review of competencies for civil engineers (GS-0810 series) and, if applicable, other related occupations, and make recommendations for ensuring that adequate AI expertise and credentials in these occupations in the Federal Government reflect the increased use of AI in critical infrastructure; and

          (ix)    work with the Security, Suitability, and Credentialing Performance Accountability Council to assess mechanisms to streamline and accelerate personnel-vetting requirements, as appropriate, to support AI and fields related to other critical and emerging technologies.

     (e)  To expand the use of special authorities for AI hiring and retention, agencies shall use all appropriate hiring authorities, including Schedule A(r) excepted service hiring and direct-hire authority, as applicable and appropriate, to hire AI talent and AI-enabling talent rapidly.  In addition to participating in OPM-led pooled hiring actions, agencies shall collaborate, where appropriate, on agency-led pooled hiring under the Competitive Service Act of 2015 (Public Law 114-137) and other shared hiring.  Agencies shall also, where applicable, use existing incentives, pay-setting authorities, and other compensation flexibilities, similar to those used for cyber and information technology positions, for AI and data-science professionals, as well as plain-language job titles, to help recruit and retain these highly skilled professionals.  Agencies shall ensure that AI and other related talent needs (such as technology governance and privacy) are reflected in strategic workforce planning and budget formulation.

     (f)  To facilitate the hiring of data scientists, the Chief Data Officer Council shall develop a position-description library for data scientists (job series 1560) and a hiring guide to support agencies in hiring data scientists.

     (g)  To help train the Federal workforce on AI issues, the head of each agency shall implement — or increase the availability and use of — AI training and familiarization programs for employees, managers, and leadership in technology as well as relevant policy, managerial, procurement, regulatory, ethical, governance, and legal fields.  Such training programs should, for example, empower Federal employees, managers, and leaders to develop and maintain an operating knowledge of emerging AI technologies to assess opportunities to use these technologies to enhance the delivery of services to the public, and to mitigate risks associated with these technologies.  Agencies that provide professional-development opportunities, grants, or funds for their staff should take appropriate steps to ensure that employees who do not serve in traditional technical roles, such as policy, managerial, procurement, or legal fields, are nonetheless eligible to receive funding for programs and courses that focus on AI, machine learning, data science, or other related subject areas.

     (h)  Within 180 days of the date of this order, to address gaps in AI talent for national defense, the Secretary of Defense shall submit a report to the President through the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs that includes:

          (i)    recommendations to address challenges in the Department of Defense’s ability to hire certain noncitizens, including at the Science and Technology Reinvention Laboratories;

          (ii)   recommendations to clarify and streamline processes for accessing classified information for certain noncitizens through Limited Access Authorization at Department of Defense laboratories;

          (iii)  recommendations for the appropriate use of enlistment authority under 10 U.S.C. 504(b)(2) for experts in AI and other critical and emerging technologies; and

          (iv)   recommendations for the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security to work together to enhance the use of appropriate authorities for the retention of certain noncitizens of vital importance to national security by the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security.