STR

I'm excited to announce that this past week I started a new position at STR as a Chief Scientist. My DARPA tour ended in October and I've been enjoying a much-needed break since then. When I walked into Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in July 2018, I never thought that my tour would last 7+ years and span roles as PM, Deputy Office Director, and briefly Acting Office Director. I'm proud of what I accomplished together with performers, SETAs, BFMs, PMs, office leadership, and agency leadership. Machine Common Sense (MCS), started by David Gunning, run by me for two years, and finished by Howard Shrobe, generated 600+ academic papers in an area that is still challenging for AI systems. Explainable AI (XAI), also inherited from David Gunning, advanced foundations for transparent and interpretable AI systems. Media Forensics (MediFor) and Semantic Forensics (SemaFor) significantly improved our ability to detect, attribute, and characterize falsified media. The community owes a debt of thanks to David Doermann for creating MediFor and to Wil Corvey, who inherited the SemaFor program I created, for transitioning capabilities across the US government and commercial ecosystem, providing the foundation to address the intensifying problem of falsified media. The In the Moment (ITM) program that I also created, now run by Patrick Shafto, is tackling AI-human alignment challenges in life-or-death decision making – a problem that will be critical in coming years. As a Deputy Office Director, I had the privilege of working for Kathleen Fisher, who allowed me space to go after problems that I cared about. As a result, we built strong partnerships with operational organizations in INDOPACOM and created DARPA's first multi-lateral international agreement, collaborating with the UK and Canada to create, evaluate, and operationalize technologies across the I2O portfolio. I also worked with PMs to help them create and execute programs, like the AI Cyber Challenge (AIxCC), with the occasional benefit of telling dad jokes from a stage at DEFCON. So why STR? Three reasons: talent, culture, and mission. I've been lucky to collaborate with talented people throughout my career. STR is built on a concentration of talented people tackling tough problems that make the world a safer place. STR's culture prioritizes impact, craftsmanship, and teamwork—values that drive progress on challenging problems important to national security. Finally, mission. I've always been mission-driven and the opportunity to continue to make a difference in the defense and intelligence space motivates me deeply. DARPA provided me a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to change the world. I look forward to taking the skills I honed at DARPA and throughout my career to help STR address what I feel is a critical & timely technical gap: the ability to measure, signature, and counter AI. More to come… #AI #NationalSecurity #DARPA #ArtificialIntelligence #DefenseTechnology