Artificial intelligence (AI) machines can out-think humans when it comes to a lot of complex, fine-grained tasks, such as detecting signs of cancer more accurately than doctors can, or finding exoplanets based on “dimming effect” data from distant solar systems. But what they don’t have is good old common sense, the ability to apply its knowledge, and the experience to various tasks humans can do from childhood. […]

The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) recently founded an artificial intelligence (AI) community of interest (COI) for anyone in DHS with an “interest in the subject.”

Pentagon officials have been pretty clear about their belief that artificial intelligence is changing the game for military operations, saying that AI will penetrate “every corner” of the Department of Defense, in the words of Brendan McCord, head of machine learning at the Defense Innovation Unit. DoD Chief Information Officer Dana Deasy lists AI among his four most important strategic areas. Defense Secretary James Mattis reportedly pushed for a “whole of country” approach earlier this year as the White House was announcing its Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) sees innovative products every day, but now it’s looking for one of its own: an innovative solution that can help determine if a patent application is truly unique.

As far as the Department of Defense is concerned, artificial intelligence is a team game, particularly where robots are concerned.

Alexander Kott, chief scientist at the U.S. Army Research Laboratory, said Wednesday at the Defense Systems Summit that creating artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) solutions for complex battlefield environments requires different prioritization than commercial solutions, and offered four tips for defense organizations looking to implement.

The White House isn’t doing enough to address in a public forum a range of artificial intelligence issues and needs to institute a public process to seek comments on AI-related issues, said a group of six industry groups and more than 80 individuals from academia and the private sector in a July 4 letter to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP).

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is piloting a new artificial intelligence (AI) initiative with Canada’s Department of National Defense that kicked off today and aims to provide first responders and paramedics with information to help make potential life-saving decisions in the field.

The Department of Defense (DoD) needs to prioritize problem solving over shiny new tools and hot technology trends, said Chris Lynch, director of the Defense Digital Service (DDS), at Defense One’s Tech Summit today.

Josh Marcuse, executive director of the Defense Innovation Board (DIB), said today at Defense One’s Tech Summit that both Silicon Valley engineers and national defense community members are stuck in a line of thinking about artificial intelligence (AI) and warfighting innovation that could impact safety and contribute to greater risk on the battlefield.

The State Department on Friday held the fourth United States-Republic of Korea Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Policy Forum in Seoul, South Korea, which brought together private sector representatives and delegations from the two nations to discuss how the countries can collaborate to advance mutual goals in areas of 5G mobile technology, artificial intelligence, inclusive Internet governance, and data privacy.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) isn’t just looking into rockets these days.

Federal agencies and private sector firms are easing into intelligent automation (IA) technologies by first using those technologies to tackle repetitive processes and then moving closer to artificial intelligence (AI) applications, government and private sector officials said last week.

Welcome to MeriTalk News Briefs, where we bring you all the day’s action that didn’t quite make the headlines. No need to shout about ‘em, but we do feel that they merit talk.

We sat down with Jeff Henry, president of ViON, in his office in Herndon, Va. The typical tech provider surroundings belied the epic changes at ViON, as it morphs from leading data center reseller to delivering government IT modernization as a service.

Artificial Intelligence systems are known for getting results with compute-intensive analytics involving huge data sets and a lot of processing power. But it turns out they also can help users do more with less.

An official with data storage technologies provider Pure Storage told MeriTalk that issues holding back Federal government adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies include the high cost of super-computing resources and the continued reliance of government agencies on legacy IT systems that were not created with AI applications in mind.

The White House’s planned advisory committee on artificial intelligence may or may not help keep the country at the forefront of technological innovation, but it is another sign that the government is getting more serious about the importance of AI and the potential threats of falling behind in the “AI arms race.”

How do you spell the future of government IT? AI. While that’s not going to get you too many points on the triple word score in Scrabble, the technology and applications will unscramble massive dividends in cost savings, service enhancements, and breakthroughs.

The White House said on Thursday that it will create a new artificial intelligence (AI) advisory committee–dubbed the Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence–that will advise the White House on AI research and development efforts in government and industry.