Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI) has created excitement because of its potential. For instance, AI can help diagnose medical conditions, forecast natural disasters, and protect national security. However, there are also significant concerns, including intellectual property rights, built-in bias, and AI's effects on humans and the environment.  

As federal agencies’ use of generative AI—which can create text, images, audio, video, and other content—grows rapidly, federal oversight of AI technologies needs to evolve. GAO’s May 2023 testimony described how GAO uses AI and how federal agencies can leverage our AI accountability framework. For instance, key practices from this framework could help inform VA’s use and implementation of AI. 

The AI accountability framework is organized around four complementary principles: 

• Governance—promote accountability by establishing processes to manage, operate, and oversee implementation 

• Data—ensure quality, reliability, and representativeness of data sources and processing 

• Performance—produce results that are consistent with program objectives 

• Monitoring—ensure reliability and relevance over time