Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell—alongside the CEOs of leading U.S. technology companies—are joining a new artificial intelligence safety board to advise the federal government on how to protect the nation’s critical services from “AI-related disruptions.”
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced the new board Friday which includes key corporate leaders in AI development such as Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, IBM CEO Arvind Krishna, and Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen.
AI holds potential for improving government services but “we recognize the tremendously debilitating impact its errant use can have,” Mayorkas told reporters Friday.
Also on the 22-member board are civil rights advocates—AI scientist Fei-Fei Li who leads Stanford University’s AI institute as well as Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell, two public officials who are “already ahead of the curve” in thinking about harnessing AI’s capabilities and mitigating risks, Mayorkas said.
The CEOs of Delta Air Lines, Northrop Grumman, Occidental Petroleum and Amazon’s AWS cloud computing division are on the board. Not included were social media companies such as Meta Platforms and X.
Mayorkas said the board will help the Department of Homeland Security stay ahead of evolving threats.