GRAND FORKS — Grand Forks believes in the future of artificial intelligence and technology and is working to grow in those areas, Mayor Brandon Bochenski told an audience brought together to discuss AI and autonomous systems in Grand Forks and the state.

“We’re standing on the great work that’s happened before us, and just trying to enhance it and make it better,” Bochenski said. “There’s 10, 20 years of work that goes into Grand Forks being put on the map. I’m just grateful that we’re on the map today.”

His sentiments were echoed by others attending the summit, one of the Innovation, Workforce and Research Conferences put on by IEEE-USA, a technical professional organization. The event was held Wednesday, Sept. 10, at the University of North Dakota Memorial Union. Between discussions on state innovation, education, workforce, networking and investing in AI and autonomy, leaders in the fields of AI and autonomy spoke to its presence at UND, Grand Forks and North Dakota as a whole.

Scott Snyder, vice president for research and economic development at UND, mirrored Bochenski’s statement on the decades of work put into the community. UND has been on the “absolute cutting edge of uncrewed and autonomous technologies and systems for well over two decades,” he said. The university also has multiple private and university partners, as well as partnerships with the Department of Defense, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Department of Homeland Security, Federal Aviation Administration and other federal government entities.

“UND is at the center of one of the most vibrant environments for the development and deployment of autonomous systems around the world,” Snyder said.

An example of engagement between UND and the federal government was a discussion between UND President Andrew Armacost and Phillip Smith, the program manager for the Tactical Technology Office at DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency).

Smith admitted he doesn’t like the word “autonomy,” as he believes it acts similarly to words like “cyber” and “synergy” as jargon people use but don’t actually understand. Breaking down the subsections of autonomy and informing people is important, he said. When Armacost asked Smith what his definition of autonomy is, he said, “software that people don’t understand.”

“It is just an algorithm that cannot be explained to people until we get to general AI,” Smith said. “Humans actually don’t understand what is happening. … Machines are supposed to be serving humans, and humans don’t even know what they want, so that’s a really hard thing.”

Smith said DARPA is working with GrandSky, testing drones that will be able to find a ship at sea, and then orient and land on it without human connection. GrandSky is an aviation business park west of Grand Forks that specifically focuses on the UAS industry.

“That’s the program that we have out here in North Dakota testing, and it’s been really fun,” he said.

Armacost said each person in the room has the opportunity to engage with DARPA, including industry partners, university partners and others.

“They have a large number of avenues that they use to cooperate with their work on technology development,” he said.

The summit itself was the product of UND leaders interacting with IEEE-USA and having an interest in showcasing what the region is doing. Mark Askelson, vice president for research-national security, said he was at a Sioux Falls, South Dakota, summit with Ryan Adams, the dean of engineering and mines, and spoke with some IEEE-USA staff about possibly holding an event in Grand Forks. Askelson said it’s an opportunity to show what the region is doing to more people who don’t know about it. It also is helping forge new connections.

“Despite the fact that we are nationally recognized, I would argue in some of these areas, there’s still a lot of people that don’t know about us,” he said. “They don’t understand some of the things that we do, so that is a great opportunity to bring those people here so they can see us. And, in my experience, once we can get somebody on the ground to see what we have going on, the light bulb goes on for them. That creates more opportunity for us to work with them and for us to innovate.”

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz said he would introduce legislation to establish AI sandboxes to allow companies “room to breathe” without running up against regulations.

Cruz announced that proposal as well as a legislative framework for AI policy ahead of a Wednesday hearing before the Subcommittee on Science, Manufacturing, and Competitiveness on the administration’s recent AI Action Plan. The concept of regulatory sandboxes were among the more than 90 policy recommendations outlined in that document.

“Under the Sandbox Act, an AI user developer can identify obstructive regulations and request a waiver or a modification, which the government may grant for two years via a written agreement that must include a participant’s responsibility to mitigate health or consumer risks,” the Texas Republican said during the hearing. “To be clear, a regulatory sandbox is not a free pass. People creating or using AI still have to follow the same laws as everyone else.”

The proposal comes as President Donald Trump has taken an approach to AI that aims to clear the way for companies working on the technology. Identifying and removing regulatory barriers to AI and limiting federal funding to states with AI regulations deemed “burdensome,” for example, were also recommendations from that plan. 

During that hearing, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Michael Kratsios voiced support for the forthcoming legislation and said he was excited to work with Cruz on the bill. He also said that the approach had already been successful in the commercial drone industry.

Trump signed an executive order during his first administration to create a pilot program that established sandboxes for drone operations, Kratsios said. That work resulted in data that was used to help the Federal Aviation Administration promulgate its recently published draft drone rule.

“I have personally seen the power of these sandboxes to be able to allow great American minds and innovators to actually put their tools to the test in real-life situations, and from there, be able to provide the necessary valuable feedback back to the regulators to be able to create the right regulatory frameworks,” Kratsios said.

Whether or not the proposal has support across the aisle isn’t yet clear.

Also during the hearing, Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester, D-Del., said that her state launched its own AI sandbox to allow companies to test the technology, which aligns with the AI Action Plan. However, she said that while she appreciated Cruz’s proposal, she wasn’t “sure that OSTP is the appropriate place for it — if we need one at all.” 

Per a draft of the legislation released by Cruz on Wednesday, which was first reported by Bloomberg, the bill would be able to apply for modifications or waivers to regulations getting in the way of their technologies, and OSTP would coordinate those requests across the government. 

The corresponding legislative framework also released Wednesday, meanwhile, focuses on five pillars: Unleashing American innovation, protecting free speech, preventing patchwork regulation, halting nefarious uses against Americans, and defending “human value and dignity.”

Notably for the U.S. government, opening federal datasets for AI model training is nested under the first pillar. There weren’t additional details on that bullet point.