VA accounts for majority of all agencies’ safety- and rights-impacting AI

VA accounts for majority of all agencies’ safety- and rights-impacting AI
The Department of Veterans Affairs has drastically expanded its adoption of artificial intelligence capabilities over the past year but is also exploring the use of more safety- and rights-impacting capabilities than any other federal agency. 

Since 2020, federal mandates have increasingly required most agencies — with limited exceptions for national security — to compile and disclose their AI use cases, which has shed new light on how VA and other agencies are approaching the use of emerging technologies.



A December 2020 executive order from then-President Donald Trump first called for agencies to publicly release their AI inventories, with the reporting guidelines fleshed out by an AI-focused executive order from President Joe Biden in October 2023. Biden’s mandate was further bolstered by a March 2024 memo released by the Office of Management and Budget, which also called for agencies to report use cases identified as safety- and rights-impacting.



In adherence with the guidance, covered federal agencies were required to submit their AI use case inventories to OMB by Dec. 16. 



In total, 37 agencies reported a combined 1,757 AI use cases in 2024, according to OMB’s consolidated inventory. 227 of these overall use cases were identified as safety- or rights-impacting, with VA accounting for 145 of those identified tools — roughly 64%.



By comparison, the agency with the second-most use cases identified as safety- and rights-impacting in 2024 was the Department of Homeland Security, which reported 34 such instances out of its total of 183 documented AI capabilities. 



OMB defined rights-impacting AI as a tool whose output affects a decision or action for a specific individual or ..

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