The Interior Department’s adoption of rapidly evolving artificial intelligence tools is hindered by “significant strategic uncertainties and institutional barriers,” the department’s internal watchdog warns in a new assessment.
While noting some clever AI work underway involving diverse areas from national parks to Quagga mussels, Interior’s Office of Inspector General reported finding myriad concerns shared by staffers across the department.
“Many of the survey respondents expressed their belief that cultural resistance and a limited understanding of AI’s transformative potential further complicate technological integration, creating a multilayered barrier to effective implementation,” the OIG’s flash report noted.
Collecting and preparing reliable data for use by the AI tools pose one big problem, the OIG evaluators found. Another, cited by Interior staffers questioned as part of the OIG examination, centers on the difficulty in “identifying and securing funding” for what they termed essential work.
