The Federal government is already using artificial intelligence technologies, but one tech expert this week explained that it’s crucial to leverage “radical collaboration” to put a formal AI governance model in place – such as an Authority to Operate (ATO).
At MeriTalk’s Accelerate AI Forum on Tuesday in Washington, D.C., Teresa Carlson – a former top executive at both Amazon and Microsoft – explained the importance of developing an ATO process for AI.
“Each one of the large cloud providers … need to make sure that they have an ATO riding on their platform that helps government and partners move much faster,” Carlson said. “And we’ve also got to make sure that government has a process because we cannot fight gravity.”
“Because of that, we have to make sure that we are working in radical collaboration between the commercial sector and public sector to ensure that we can move faster,” she added.
Carlson, who is now an advisor and investor for General Catalyst, explained that the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) began in 2011, but it wasn’t until December 2022 that the president signed the FedRAMP Authorization Act into law.
The act codified the FedRAMP program into law and helped to facilitate the use of cloud technologies that have already received an ATO.
“It took us over 10 years to get from ideation to law. That’s crazy. We have got to move much faster,” Carlson said. “AI is going to move much faster – there is no doubt. It’s going to move faster, agencies are going to want to adopt, they’re going to want to use it.”
“Let’s get this going. Let’s put them all in place to make sure it scales because the FedRAMP ATO took a long time,” she said, adding, “I’m excited, and I’m also very passionate about bringing in these new technologies … so, I look forward to being a part of this process.”
