Join us for the kickoff of our Fall Distinguished Speaker series with our first event featuring William Regli, a pioneering leader in artificial intelligence and national security whose career spanning DARPA, the Department of Defense, and the White House has shaped how the U.S. government understands, manages, and prepares for the risks and opportunities of emerging AI technologies.

Title: "Perspectives on AI Risk: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love AI"

In Voltaire's Candide, Dr. Pangloss is relentlessly optimistic in the face of novella's unflinching portrait of the human condition; his opposite, Martin, is pessimistic and cynical. Today's developments around Artificial Intelligence are being driven by similarly opposing forces. The Panglossian approach views AI as humanity's grasping of Promethean fire, whereas others see existential risk and threats to human safety, privacy, and wellbeing. We might hope that the reality is somewhere in between; and we might suspect that the reason for these extreme views is that we probably have the problems around AI framed incorrectly.

This presentation attempts to summarize my personal views regarding AI that I have developed during my decade away from academia in various forms of public service. First, as a member of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (DARPA) leadership team in the Defense Sciences Office (2014-2017); next as the founding director of the Applied Research Laboratory for Intelligence and Security, the Department of Defense's university-affiliated research center (UARC) for the social sciences and AI at the University of Maryland (2018-2023); and lastly as Senior Advisor for AI Risk Modeling for
Biden Administration's Office of Science and Technology Policy (2023-2024). The bottom line, upfront:

-- Current AI narratives are techno-philic and need to be re-framed because the thorniest problems are decidedly non-technical—they are mostly about AI's interaction with, and influence on, people and society;

-- Unlike physics and engineering, we do not yet have the required level of scientific understanding about AI and its effects on people and society needed to establish rigorous engineering practices and manage its use; and, lastly

-- The impacts of AI, operating at various levels in our society (ranging from individuals to our planetary community as a whole), are going to be uneven in scale, speed, and impact.

I would rather not merely admire these problems; hence, I will try to reframe them as inherently socio-technical. I will provide a practical methodology for identifying emerging scientific and engineering questions related to the ongoing integration of AI with humans and society. Using this approach, I will provide several examples of research questions that merit investigation. In the end, I hope to provide a unique perspective on recent developments in AI and a tangible means by which we might address these daunting emerging challenges.

Bio:

Dr. Regli is a computer scientist who has focused his career on interdisciplinary and use-inspired problems spanning artificial intelligence, engineering and manufacturing, and computational modeling. Dr. Regli's recent sponsored research activities include verification and validation of intelligent systems; intelligent computer networks; and the use of artificial intelligence in advanced manufacturing. He has published more than 250 technical articles, created two technology companies (one focused on mobile communications for public safety, the other on information management in edge networks), and produced five foundational U.S. Patents in the area of 3D CAD search.

From 2014 to 2017, Regli served on the leadership team of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), as Deputy Director (9/14-12/16) and Acting Director (1/17-7/17) of the Defense Sciences Office (DSO); then as Special Assistant to the DARPA Director (8/17-12/17). During his tenure, DSO initiated programs in areas as diverse as artificial intelligence, design and manufacturing, social science, applied mathematics, physical sciences and advanced sensing technologies; in his role leading DSO, he advanced the data management and retention plans for the agency, co-developed the Disruptioneering program template, expanded the DARPA Young Faculty Award, and was the Program Chair for the DARPA anniversary conference (9/2018). For his contributions, Regli received the Award for Excellence for Meritorious Service (2015) from the Undersecretary
of Defense (AT&L) and DARPA Meritorious Public Service Medal (2017).

Regli's other government service includes as a National Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) (1995-1997); as a Scientific Adviser to the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) in the areas of information technology and manufacturing (2010-2014;2018-); and as a member of the US Air Force Scientific Advisory Board (2019-2021; 2022-). His community service currently includes a role on the Computing Research Association (CRA) Computing Community Consortium (CCC) Advisory Board (2021-) as well as several editorial boards. Regli recently completed service as the founding Executive Director (2018-2023) of the University of Maryland's University-Affiliated Research Center for the Department of Defense: The Applied Research Laboratory for Intelligence and Security (ARLIS), the chartered DoD academic laboratory for the Intelligence and Security communities. For part of 2023-2024, Regli served in the Executive Offices of the President (EOP), White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), as a Senior Advisor for AI Risk for the National AI Initiatives Office supporting a variety of activities.

Dr. Regli holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Maryland at College Park and Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics from Saint Joseph's University. He is an elected Senior Member of both the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) and of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI); and a Fellow of the Computer Society of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) for his contributions to 3D search, design repositories and intelligent manufacturing, and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) for work at the interface between science and government primarily at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

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