In mid-January 2009, in advance of the inauguration of President Obama, a radiological survey of downtown Washington, DC was conducted at the request of the Secret Service.
No statistically significant man-made radiological activity was detected in the survey. Typical variations in natural background radiation were found, along with slightly elevated readings at the National World War II Memorial and elsewhere “caused by the building materials containing naturally occurring radioisotopes.”
See “Radiological Survey of Downtown Washington DC for the 2009 Presidential Inauguration” (large pdf), National Nuclear Security Administration, March 2009.
The clearinghouse will also neutrally mediate the assignment of auditors to audits—strengthening independence, trust, and ethical governance across the AI ecosystem.
The potential implication of these evidence gaps becomes more consequential when you look at how institutions actually make decisions day to day.
Every new institution inherits something – existing incentives, existing staff, decades of prior investment that shaped what’s possible.
This is not the first time Google has agreed to censor imagery at the behest of governments, but be warned: obfuscation at this broad level poses a direct threat to the public’s ability to monitor and scrutinize government operations.