With only a modest $10 million budget to help regulate a multibillion-dollar industry, Biden’s new AI security lab is now struggling alone with the security of its own facilities.
The “chronic underfunding” of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the federal laboratory that will house the new US AI Safety Institute, has reportedly led to black mold, leaky roofs, and a Dead technician crushed by a concrete slab.
Despite calls from scientists and businesspeople who have described “AI’s risk of extinction” as equivalent to “pandemics and nuclear war,” Republican deficit hawks in Congress pushed for a 10 percent budget cut. to NIST, and Biden approved it.
A former senior NIST official reported seeing “Home Depot dehumidifiers or portable air conditioning units everywhere” purchased by staff to help dry out and curb mold growth.
Another reported incessant indoor leaks during rainy weather that forced staff to “tarp over” critical electronic equipment.
Pests and wildlife, including snakes, have also infiltrated NIST campuses, further compromising the lab’s ability to conduct precise experiments essential to its work developing official regulatory standards.
With only a modest $10 million budget to help regulate a multibillion-dollar industry, Biden’s new AI security lab is now struggling alone with the safety of its own facilities: black mold, leaky roofs, and a technician. dead crushed by a concrete slab, according to internal reports
“You see dust everywhere because the windows don’t seal,” said former NIST acting director Kent Rochford. Washington Post.
“You see a bucket collecting drops from a leak in the roof.”
Rochford, one of more than a dozen current and former NIST employees, administrative officials and artificial intelligence experts who spoke to the Post for its investigation, said he once requested funding for diving equipment to address the damage caused. due to flooding at a NIST facility.
He was denied funding, he said, but NIST was given squeegees to clean the water.
Nearly two-thirds (more than 60 percent) of NIST buildings do not meet federal safety standards, according to a report commissioned by Congress last year and conducted by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.
The academy estimated that “the poor and deteriorating physical condition and functionality of NIST facilities” absorbed 40 percent of labor productivity as staff resorted to “workarounds and DIY repairs.”
“On occasion, pests and wildlife have infiltrated their campuses,” according to the Post, “including one incident in which a snake entered a Boulder building.”
NIST’s two main campuses, in Boulder, Colorado, and Gaithersburg, Maryland, are more than half a century old, with their foundations built during the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations, respectively.
The federal institute, tasked with testing everything from the safety of industrial chemicals to the concrete used in high-rise apartments to advanced biometric identification systems, has now added AI safety to its purview.
“We don’t know very well how to evaluate AI,” NIST chief AI advisor Elham Tabassi said at a machine learning conference, NeurIPS, last December.
Tabassi complained that President Joe Biden’s executive order from November of this year, mandating the creation of the NIST artificial intelligence institute, created a “nearly impossible deadline.”
“It’s a difficult problem,” he said.
NIST Chief AI Advisor Elham Tabassi has complained that President Biden’s executive order from November of this year, which mandated the creation of NIST’s AI institute, created a “nearly impossible timeline.”
For the Biden White House, Commerce Department spokesman Charlie Andrews gave a much more optimistic assessment of the situation.
“While the administration has made clear that additional resources will be needed to fully address all of the issues raised by AI in the long term,” he said, “NIST has been effectively fulfilling its responsibilities.”
But some in the AI community worry that the lack of funding for NIST’s AI security effort risks giving Big Tech an opportunity to put its thumb on the scale.
Amazon has pledged $5 million in ‘computing credits’ to NIST’s AI efforts for its AI security testing; and Microsoft, part owner of OpenAI, maker of ChatGPT, have offered engineering teams to NIST AI Security Consortium.
Electrical safety problems of exactly the type that could undermine AI safety research have plagued NIST facilities along with mold, leaks, flooding, and pests.
The researchers told the Post that they sometimes slept in their laboratories in an effort to monitor and safeguard their work during recurring blackouts.
Other staff members reported having to transport hard drives with crucial research data between buildings due to unreliable internet connections and low bandwidth speeds.
But according to Commerce Department spokesperson Andrews, NIST’s AI staff will enjoy well-equipped offices located on the institute’s Gaithersburg campus, a Commerce Department office in Washington, D.C., and NIST’s National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence. in Rockville, Maryland.