Today, the Department of Defense (DoD) Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office (CDAO) publicly released the Responsible Artificial Intelligence (RAI) Toolkit, a key deliverable of the DoD RAI Strategy & Implementation Pathway (RAI S&I Pathway), signed June 2022, by Deputy Secretary of Defense (DSD) Kathleen Hicks.
The RAI S&I Pathway spells out 64 lines of effort for operationalizing the Department of Defense's AI Ethical Principles, including developing technical tools and guidance to help DoD personnel design, develop, deploy, and use AI systems responsibly. The RAI Toolkit is built upon the earlier Responsible AI (RAI) Guidelines and Worksheets developed by the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), the NIST AI Risk Management Framework and Toolkit, and the IEEE 7000 Standard Model Process for Addressing Ethical Concerns during System Design, among other sources.
The RAI Toolkit provides users a voluntary process that identifies, tracks, and improves alignment of AI projects to RAI best practices and the Department's AI Ethical Principles, while capitalizing on opportunities for innovation. Additionally, the Toolkit's intuitive flow guides users through tailorable and modular assessments, tools, and artifacts throughout the AI product lifecycle. Finally, the RAI Toolkit offers guidance and an RAI standard to current and future DoD industry partners related to the RAI-focused products and other capabilities they seek to develop. The Toolkit is a living document that will be continuously enhanced.
The RAI Toolkit development effort was led by the RAI Division, with support, insight, and feedback from the DoD Responsible AI Working Council, subject matter experts from across the Department, federal funded research and development centers, university-affiliated research center laboratories, and industry partners. "The Toolkit is a core pillar of the Department's Responsible AI work, and we are honored to contribute to the Department's overall journey toward justified confidence in AI-enabled systems," remarked Chief of RAI Division Diane Staheli.
The RAI Toolkit reinforces the Department's commitment to becoming a responsible AI-enabled organization. CDAO Craig Martell proclaimed, "Responsible AI is foundational for anything that the DoD builds and ships. So, I am thrilled about the release of the RAI Toolkit. This release demonstrates our commitment to ethics, risk assessment, internal governance, and external collaboration. We promised to establish processes to design and employ human fail-safes in AI development and deployment, and we're excited to provide this applied Toolkit for our end users." Interested users may access the online RAI Toolkit here: https://rai.tradewindai.com/
About the CDAO
The CDAO became operational in June 2022 and is dedicated to integrating and optimizing artificial intelligence capabilities across the DoD. The office is responsible for accelerating the DoD's adoption of data, analytics, and AI, enabling the Department's digital infrastructure and policy adoption to deliver scalable AI-driven solutions for enterprise and joint use cases, safeguarding the nation against current and emerging threats
