USAID Continues to Focus on AI and Emerging Technology — Top Official 

After revealing a democracy, human rights, and governance policy Samantha Power, Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), highlighted the dual potential of technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and spyware, which could assist authoritarians while systems like facial recognition might be employed to suppress dissent and silence critics.

She also highlighted the need for some of these technologies for the betterment of humanity.

“This policy expands our toolbox so that we can keep up with fast-moving technology that can be weaponized against citizens. As the agency’s first-ever credo on digital democracy, it codifies our intent to counter the rise of digital repression at its source. We are working with lawyers, judges, legislatures and other oversight organizations to develop national strategies and standards around the use of technologies,” she said in her speech, the Fedscoop reported.

Power also held a meeting with Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic to explore potential applications of AI in global development. Their discussion centered on various use cases for the technology. Anthropic did not provide a comment in response to a request.

In June, Power met Anna Makanju, Head of Global Affairs at OpenAI. This meeting reflects USAID's ongoing commitment to advancing artificial intelligence (AI) amidst growing concerns over privacy, security, bias, and associated risks.

Both parties also discussed enhancing advancements in critical sectors such as global health and food security, mitigating AI misuse, and bolstering information integrity and resilience in USAID partner nations.

Not so long ago, Isobel Coleman, the agency’s deputy administrator, also discussed the potential ramifications of AI at the Global AI Leadership Summit. 

“Artificial intelligence can help. It quickly identifies patterns no humans can see in a lifetime, and these analyses can then inform how we scale our responses. But the truth is that while AI is one of our best bets, there are huge gaps between the Global North and the Global South in terms of capability and capacity for digital tools, specifically AI,” Coleman said, according to a prepared transcript of the speech released by USAID.