MR GRAVISS: Good morning, everyone. I'm Matthew Graviss, the chief data and AI officer of the Department of State. It is my distinct pleasure to welcome all of you here today - our dedicated employees, members of the press, and esteemed congressional colleagues. Whether you're here in person or joining us from around the globe, thank you for taking the time to be part of this important discussion on the future of diplomacy and the age of artificial intelligence.
In an era of rapid technological evolution, AI stands as a cornerstone of our strategy to enhance diplomatic efforts. AI's potential to analyze vast amounts of data in real time, identify trends, and provide insights is transforming the way we approach global challenges. It empowers our diplomats with the tools they need to navigate complex geopolitical landscapes, foster international cooperation, and advance U.S. interests abroad.
At the Department of State we're committed to harnessing AI's transformative power responsibly and ethically, ensuring it aligns with our values of transparency, accountability, and respect for human rights. By integrating AI into our operations, we aim to not only enhance our diplomatic capabilities, but also inform our efforts to set global standards for its use internationally.
Today we're honored to have with us a visionary leader who has been at the forefront of these efforts. As part of the department's modernization agenda we have made significant strides in leveraging technology and innovation to advance our foreign policy objectives.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is my great privilege to introduce to you the Secretary of State, Antony Blinken. (Applause.)
SECRETARY BLINKEN: Thank you, thank you. Good morning, everyone. It's 9 a.m. We have a full house. When I was in college that meant free doughnuts, or something. (Laughter.)
But actually, I think it's evidence of the more than deep interest, the fascination and enthusiasm for the work that we're doing to integrate technology into the day-in, day-out life of the State Department, and the opportunity this morning to talk about the efforts that we've been making on artificial intelligence. And I have to say, thanks to Matthew, thanks to a remarkable team here, I think what you'll hear in the coming hours shows the work that we've been doing and leading in the federal government to make AI part of our lives.
Increasingly, we're seeing across the board technology at the forefront of our diplomacy and our foreign policy. And the revolutions that all of us are experiencing in our daily lives and in our non-work lives, of course, are having a profound impact on our work lives, and they're also at the heart of strategic competition that we're engaged in, at the heart of strengthening and deepening our alliances and partnerships.
We can see extraordinary potential, extraordinary benefit. And we'll talk in a few minutes about how we're actually beginning to realize that. At the same time, we all know, you all are deeply conscious of the challenges, the threats, the danger that technology can pose. We know that for the most part - and we'll see AI may be different - technology is amoral, not immoral. It depends on how you use it. But we have to be deeply conscious of that as we move forward.
But the possibilities are extraordinary. We had a session at the UN General Assembly last fall, where we brought together technologists and countries around the world to look at how AI could be used to accelerate the Sustainable Development Goals which are, for the most part, stalled. And what's interesting to me is, as I travel around the world, the places where I find the most enthusiasm for artificial intelligence and technology more broadly actually is in the global majority countries in the developing world, because they see a way of accelerating and getting out of neutral on some of the big objectives that they've set for their societies and that we need to help them realize.
But the moment we're in is critical because in so many ways the choices that we make now will define how technology is used, how it's deployed, and to what effect for a long time into the future. And that's why we have this intense focus on artificial intelligence, other technologies that are going to be shaping that future. We have to make generational investments and generational decisions here at home, including in our technological competitiveness. That's essential to making sure that we remain the standard-setters, the rule-makers around the world. Working with partners to direct technology to more stable, secure, healthy societies - that is also critical, and it has to animate the diplomacy that so many of you are engaged in.
We have the President's leadership on this, including his executive order on AI. We have the International Cyber and Digital Strategy. All of this together, these are foundational elements for the work that we are and have to do.
So let me just talk a little bit quickly about the state of State in AI. In 2021 we put forward our modernization agenda, and a big part of that, as you look at it, is making sure that we're working with, using, integrating technology in the work that we're doing. Some of this entails experimentation, some of it entails risk. But if we're not leaning in, we're going to be left out and left behind.
Last fall we released the Enterprise AI Strategy, a roadmap to harness AI's benefits to advance our foreign policy and to strengthen this institution. And as I said, if you look around the federal government, I'm happy to report that this department is leading the way. And indeed, other agencies and departments are looking to the work that we've been doing.
Now, I think there are two major reasons why we want to focus on AI and its use here in the department. First, and maybe most fundamentally, freeing up so much of our talent to focus on what's really essential, to focus on the more strategic work, to help ensure that more routine tasks that technology can take on, that's what's happening, and they can spend less time face-to-screen, and more time face-to-face. We can automate simple, routine tasks; we can summarize and translate research. Something that would take normally days, even weeks can be done in a manner of seconds. We'll talk about this a little bit later, too - media monitoring. Truly, already some extraordinary things the technology we're deploying is helping us to do.
All of this you'll have an opportunity to get into in some detail today.
Second, I think we can use this technology to actually improve our analysis, to unearth new insights. We've seen already, as we've been testing things out, using AI as a tool for helping negotiations in multilateral organizations - we'll talk about that. Using it as a way to combat disinformation, one of the poisons in the international system today.
So we'll get into all of this in a little while, but what I've seen already gives me a tremendous sense of excitement about the potential, but also, again, a caution to make sure that we're proceeding wisely, securely, safely, and that we are focused on some of the challenges and risks, as well as the opportunities.
Ultimately, this is a tool. AI is a tool. And it's only as good and as effective as the people using it, and of course it's only as good as the inputs that go into it. FSI is integrating AI into its training, including safety, including responsible use. And, of course, it's critical that we attract and retain the best possible talent to help us in the integration of technology.
So you're already seeing in a number of places missions using AI to support our work, and we're going to celebrate the 2024 Data and AI for Diplomacy awardees today to recognize work that's already been done, hopefully to inspire more work to help each of us actually visualize how this can be a part of the work that we're doing at the department.
And I'm also very pleased that we're launching AI.State, a central hub for all things AI at the department. It offers formal and informal training, including already videos that are up there to help folks get started. It's a home for all of our internal State Department AI tools - libraries of prompts and use cases. And I would just say, try it out. I'd encourage everyone to test it out, to try it out, to explore it, to try to learn from it, and also lend your own ideas and input, because this is something that will continue to be iterative and a work in progress.
Basically, three words to help guide us: Just get started. And I think once you do, your imaginations will really take flight and you'll begin to see more and more how the extraordinary technology that's before us can have a profound impact on the work that we're all doing.
In 1860, upon receiving the first telegraph, the British prime minister at the time, Lord Palmerston, reportedly said: "My God. This is the end of diplomacy." (Laughter.) Every single technological breakthrough that we've had - whether it was the telegraph, the telephone, the radio, the internet - people have been concerned about what it means for their way of doing business, their way of life, their job. And of course, disruptive, transformative technologies can have negative impacts that we have to guard against. But I see this profoundly - AI, other technologies we're deploying - as a way to strengthen what we're doing, to strengthen our diplomacy, to better serve our country, to better serve our people, to better advance our interests in what is an increasingly complex world. And so that's what we really want to talk about today, and start a conversation, and continue it through the day and through the days and weeks ahead.
So thank you all for being here this morning. Thanks to all those who are listening in. Matthew, why don't we start a conversation? (Applause.)
MR GRAVISS: Yeah, let's - let's dive in.
So you talked about the modernization - the modernization agenda, you talked about the AI strategy that came out last fall. Taking it back a little further, after you sworn in as the Secretary of State, your first engagement with the workforce, one thing that stuck out to me was your commitment to leaving the organization, the institution better than when you found it. And we deployed a number of AI technologies over the last few years. How do you see - why do you see AI as being critical to advancing our foreign policy objectives?
SECRETARY BLINKEN: So I think there are a couple of things that are worth reflecting on, and maybe just to start it at 60,000 feet.
One of the things that struck me actually last time I was in government during the Obama administration in the work that we're doing was the essential role of technology in helping us to get the right answers. And one of the challenges I think that we have - well, let me just speak for myself, that I have - is, of course, I'm not trained in science and technology for the most part, and I suspect that most of us that's the case. It tends to be that folks who are working foreign policy, working diplomacy are more trained in other skills. And increasingly, it became evident to me as we working on these issues, including at the White House as part of the deputies committee, that virtually everything we were doing had as at least a part of its answer, some kind of technological or scientific solution.
And as I've said to some of you, I got to the point where I needed scientists and technologists at the table just to tell me whether I needed scientists and technologists at the table. (Laughter.) So we made a big effort, particularly the last few years of that administration, to do just that, to bring in extraordinary experts, but also to help us understand how we could use technology to more effectively advance our work, both in terms of the efficiencies that we needed to have within our departments and agencies, but also to problem solve, to take something like how do you better monitor an arms control agreement, how do you think about dealing with massive flows of refugees and keeping people connected, how do you build genuinely effective food security, health security, how do you think about the role that technology can play in advancing so many of these core missions.
Fast forward to where we are now, and fast forward to what I think is change at a genuinely exponential rate. Moore's Law has been blown up. And when you look at AI in particular, it's truly extraordinary. I think two things are really compelling. One is - for me, at least, I've been doing this for more than 30 years now - I can't remember a period of time when we had a greater multiplicity of challenges and a greater complexity of challenges and an interconnectedness among those challenges. What I've seen already in the way we're looking at and using AI is an ability to make greater sense more quickly of all of that complexity, to see the interconnections more immediately, and so help us make sense of the world and where we want to take it.
Second, Matthew, I think we've talked a lot - and it's also a big focus of the modernization agenda - how do we deal with a time when all of us, all of you are being asked to do more with less, precisely because there's so much more on our plates. It's more complicated, and yet we're challenged for resources, even though we're fighting for them every single day. If we can have technology like AI that genuinely frees up people's time to make sure that some of these more routine tasks that can be done quickly and — that otherwise, if we were doing them, would take a lot longer, that is an incredible source of freedom and opportunity for the workforce to make sure that it's focused on what really matters, and to use the value added that we bring to each task truly to the fore.
So we were already seeing through the work that we're doing, including some of the beta testing of our chatbot, the extraordinary savings and time that this can bring. This is just the beginning, and I think the opportunities are extraordinary.
MR GRAVISS: I think about that in the context of operational effectiveness. I'm an engineer, so naturally I think about effectiveness and efficiency: on the effectiveness side, the ability to process just so much more data, our team across the globe is producing communications, thousands a day, and the ability to synthesize that is paramount, given the multiplicity of challenges and complexity of challenges.
During the demo we saw one of our brilliant data scientists talk through the ability to synthesize 30 cables quickly. For all you FSOs that are transitioning this summer, the ability to come to speed provided you're - the person who you're replacing left a structured set of data even - either in a SharePoint site or anywhere, I mean —
SECRETARY BLINKEN: Yeah, this is incredible. We saw this - I just saw this yesterday. Some of you may have seen this - and just to pick up on what Matthew is saying. So one of the challenges we all face - we're doing transitions at an embassy, and you have someone who is departing, someone who is coming in. The person coming in has to pick up the portfolio and, hopefully, in a way that doesn't involve reinventing the wheel that someone spent the past three years building. So as Matthew was saying, we saw one small demonstration of this. The outgoing person leaves behind 30, 40, 50 cables worth of work in a particular area - let's say its energy. The incoming person trying to make sense of what the host country is looking for in terms of collaboration with us on energy, who the key players are, where we can have - be - have the strongest possible relationship, what they hope for from the United States, what they may be looking for from others, all of this is embedded in all of these cables.
