MITRE and UMass Chan to open new AI Assurance and Discovery Lab
New England Council members, MITRE and UMass Chan have partnered to open a new AI Assurance and Discovery lab to discover and mitigate critical risks in AI-enabled systems. This will become especially important as AI becomes more integrated into high-stakes, complex environments and government policies.
MITRE defines AI assurance as discovering, assessing, and managing risks throughout an AI-enabled system’s lifecycle to effectively provide for stakeholders and its users. Consequential applications such as national security, healthcare, and transportation are the most important places for the management of AI, and the lab can help the government and other agencies or organizations to consult for long-term AI assurance strategies. Based at MITRE’s McLean, Virginia, headquarters, the lab features space for risk discovery, such as simulated environments, AI red teaming, significant language model evaluation, human-in-the-loop experimentation, and assurance plan development. MITRE’s scientists will help government agencies and private companies with specialties in computational sciences, linguistics, robotics, human cognitive science, and more. The lab’s opening also drew praise from the U.S. Virginia Congressional leaders in attendance.
“Government use of AI will have consequential impacts on the nation and world, in areas such as efficient transportation, effective healthcare, and strengthened national security,” said Charles Clancy, MITRE senior vice president and chief technology officer. “However, in adopting these systems, we also need to mitigate risks. Providing an independent assessment of the security, safety, and efficacy of AI systems will play a critical role toward helping government and business integrate new technology in benefits processing, intelligence analysis, autonomous vehicles, and more. This lab will demonstrate a repeatable engineering approach and infrastructure that could serve as a blueprint for a national network of AI assurance facilities.”
The New England Council applauds MITRE and UMass Chan for their innovation and progress in AI.