Servicemember Quality of Life Improvement and National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2025, Section 236 ("Pilot program on development of near-term use cases and demonstration of artificial intelligence toward biotechnology applications for…

• Authority: United States Congress
• Parent authority: Federal government
• Jurisdiction: United States
• Collections: NDAA provisions;FY2025 NDAA
• Most recent activity: Enacted
• Most recent activity date: 2024-12-23

Risk subdomain coverage

Minimal coverage — Brief mention but no specific mitigations, recommendations or governance measures relating to the risk subdomain are described.

• AI system security vulnerabilities
• Competitive dynamics
• Governance failure
• Lack of capability or robustness

All other risk subdomains had no coverage in this document.

Risk Coverage Summary

The document has minimal coverage of risk domains, with brief implicit mentions of approximately 3-4 subdomains. There is some implicit coverage of AI system security (2.2) through cybersecurity requirements, competitive dynamics (6.4) through public-private partnerships, and governance (6.5) through reporting mechanisms. The document is primarily focused on establishing a pilot program structure rather than addressing specific AI risks.

Sector coverage

Good coverage — Comprehensive governance measures or mitigations with clear procedures relating to the sector are explicitly described.

• Scientific Research & Development Services
• National Security

All other sectors had no coverage in this document.

Sectors Summary

This document primarily governs AI use in the National Security sector through a Department of Defense pilot program. It also has secondary coverage of Scientific Research and Development Services through public-private partnerships with commercial and academic entities developing AI for biotechnology applications.

Legislative Status

Hard Law

Legislative Status Summary

This is a binding legislative statute enacted by the United States Congress as part of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2025, with mandatory obligations on the Secretary of Defense to establish and operate a pilot program, submit reports, and develop transition plans.

Actors

Proposer

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor
• Entities: United States Congress
• Summary: The document is Section 236 of the Servicemember Quality of Life Improvement and National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2025, which is proposed and enacted by the United States Congress.

Target

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor, AI_Developer, AI_Infrastructure_Provider
• Entities: Secretary of Defense; Department of Defense; Department of Defense laboratories; public-private partnership entities (commercial and academic organizations)
• Summary: The document primarily targets the Secretary of Defense and Department of Defense to establish and operate the pilot program. It also applies to private sector and academic entities that enter into public-private partnerships for AI biotechnology development.

Enforcer

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor
• Entities: Congressional defense committees; United States Congress
• Summary: The congressional defense committees serve as the enforcement body through oversight mechanisms, receiving biennial reports and transition plans to monitor compliance with the pilot program requirements.

Monitor

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor
• Entities: Congressional defense committees; Secretary of Defense
• Summary: The congressional defense committees monitor the pilot program through biennial reporting requirements. The Secretary of Defense also has internal monitoring responsibilities through assessments of cybersecurity, data resources, and technology viability.

AI Lifecycle Stages

Lifecycle stages covered by the documents, as defined in the OECD Framework for the Classification of AI Systems

• Plan and Design
• Collect and Process Data
• Build and Use Model
• Verify and Validate
• Deploy
• Operate and Monitor

AI Lifecycle Summary

The document covers multiple AI lifecycle stages with primary focus on Build and Use Model (through AI model validation), Verify and Validate (through experimentation and validation), Deploy (through demonstrations and transition planning), and Operate and Monitor (through operational use assessment and transition to operational program). It addresses the full development pipeline from model development through operational deployment.

Technical Scope

Terms relating to technical scope that are mentioned or implicitly referenced in the document

• AI Models
• AI Systems

Technical Scope Summary

The document explicitly mentions AI models in the context of validation for biotechnology applications. It refers to artificial intelligence broadly for national security purposes but does not specifically define or distinguish between frontier AI, general purpose AI, task-specific AI, foundation models, generative AI, predictive AI, or open-weight models. No compute thresholds are mentioned.