a former darpa director told me that darpa gets all of its resources and support, which both of those are important, and he said all you have to do is do one to two things per decade. prof. miller: i think darpa is one of probably the few institutions around this town that has almost unanimous support in terms of its accompaniment because of its track record. it is a better track record that many venture capital firms have to be sure. dr. prabhakar: yeah. prof. miller: what explains that success? if we could learn the key to that success and replicate it, we would have a lot more successful r&d. dr. prabhakar: first of all, there are enormous successes that happen across the federal r&d enterprise. darpa is in the business of going for high-impact and being able to take high risk in order to reach for high-impact. and that is why when it succeeds, its successes are so dramatic. but i think it is important to recognize it is both on top of this foundational base of research funded by nsf, nih, and other parts of the defense department and the basic research it supports. because none of

a former darpa director told me that darpa gets all of its resources and support, which both of those are important, and he said all you have to do is do one to two things per decade. prof. miller: i think darpa is one of probably the few institutions around this town that has almost unanimous support in terms of its accompaniment because of its track record. it is a better track record that many venture capital firms have to be sure. dr. prabhakar: yeah. prof. miller: what explains that success? if we could learn the key to that success and replicate it, we would have a lot more successful r&d. dr. prabhakar: first of all, there are enormous successes that happen across the federal r&d enterprise. darpa is in the business of going for high-impact and being able to take high risk in order to reach for high-impact. and that is why when it succeeds, its successes are so dramatic. but i think it is important to recognize it is both on top of this foundational base of research funded by nsf, nih, and other parts of the defense department and the basic research it supports. because none of

one of those at darpa, we had a synthetic biology program. the program manager came in and said there is a future where the air force instead of pouring a runway could grow a runway. a biological process that harvests materials in this place you just landed in and actually can build something of that structural capacity. that is actually something we have proven you can do now. there is an effort to build that out. this sort of gives you a sense of how much more biology can do and where we are today. this was the focus of an executive order the president signed a couple years ago now in order to make sure that america leads in this area. what i don't want to do here is a playbook we have done many times which is we do beautiful research and someone else commercializes it and we do not have the manufacturing capacity here. one of the areas we have focused on is building the bio process caleb capacity so that -- scale up capacity so that we not only know how to do things in a lie but we can start showing what scale up looks like to vent out the

a former darpa director told me that darpa gets all of its resources and support, which both of those are important, and he said all you have to do is do one to two things per decade. prof. miller: i think darpa is one of probably the few institutions around this town that has almost unanimous support in terms of its accompaniment because of its track record. it is a better track record that many venture capital firms have to be sure. dr. prabhakar: yeah. prof. miller: what explains that success? if we could learn the key to that success and replicate it, we would have a lot more successful r&d. dr. prabhakar: first of all, there are enormous successes that happen across the federal r&d enterprise. darpa is in the business of going for high-impact and being able to take high risk in order to reach for high-impact. and that is why when it succeeds, its successes are so dramatic. but i think it is important to recognize it is both on top of this foundational base of research funded by nsf, nih, and other parts of the defense department and the basic research it supports. because none of

the reason you are able to do that is because of darpa. she is dealing with some of the toughest most exciting issues around. thank you for being here today. we are delighted. if you don't mind i thought we would start with a little bit of a nontraditional question which is how did you get here. i understand he came to washington for one year and somehow you are sitting here many years later as the president's top advisor on some of the most critical issues around. how does that happen? heather: sometimes i ask myself that question. i did come for one year on a congressional fellowship right out of my phd program. i wanted a bigger view than the very deep, narrow work i had done for my thesis. four years ago right now i showed up in washington. i lived in the apartment next door, so it is lovely to be at brookings. looking back, i've had the great privilege of about half of that, four decades, has been public service. leading the national institutes of technology. i spent 15 years in silicon valley. couple of companies. most of that was ea

think about darpa to a brother said, the longer, as long as we had education in this country we had racial discrimination in schools. as long as we've had elections in this country with a racial discrimination in voting. as an ordinary pain, that's the things were fighting against. we can feel weary, we can feel weary but i think the thing that, i'm feeling sometimes weary and body but in spirit not at all because what i do hold onto is not just people fighting against that what we're fighting for. our organization, lawyers' committee for civil rights under law with talk about something wiggle the future we deserve, and all of the dreams and aspirations of this generation to design dispraise, taking the shorts, i don't know if you know what that means, taking the shorts. look it up. it's an old phrase. but you know i think about this generation. i think about all the things that of the hopes and dreams you have for my kids who are all three kids between ages of five and nine. i think what you want for them and what they want for themselves are not just wishes. they are not i see on the cak

one of the neatest things she has done is a sheet ran darpa. if you are not familiar, spend a little time googling. the reason you are able to do a lot of that is because of darpa. she has a tremendous background. she is dealing with some of the toughest most exciting issues around. thank you for being here today, we're delighted. >> great to be with you, mara. great to talk about these important issues at brookings. >> if you don't mind, i thought i would start with a nontraditional question, just how did you get here? i understand that, like me, i'm guessing a lot of folks, came to washington for one year, and somehow, you are sitting here many years later as the president's top advisor on some of the most critical issues around. >> heather: sometimes i ask myself that question. i did come for one year on a congressional fellowship right out of my phd program. i wanted a bigger view than the very deep, narrow work i had done for my thesis. four years ago right now i showed up in washington. i lived in the apartment next door, so it is lovely

came me from having before nuclear war a scenario i previously six books on these the pentagon cia, darpa and you know 100 plus sources and each book almost all them at some point during a lengthy interview saying i dedicated my life to preventing nuclear world war three. and most people said that to me with the kind of, you know, swelling and legitimately so and so during the previous administration and when president trump was talking about fire and fury all that nuclear war rhetoric, i got to thinking about what all those sources had told. and i thought, what happens if deterrence fails? prevention fails? what would that be like? and what i learned didn't just shock me. it shocked me again and again and again and again. and that's what i put in book. i put what i learned from top tier, upper echelon national security people who opened door into this world so that i could really see what and as you know from reading book it happens in seconds and not days and weeks. right. i think. it's 78 minutes your nuclear war takes right around there. yes. yeah. three x 24 minutes. 800. that's not

we are at probably the post darpa preen net version of the internet here.we are in the baby steps version of it so there's a bit of overreacting to what it is and what it can do what we should do all the things to get ourselves ready for it. we are under reacting to a valued potential in the 50 year timeline. similarly to how we go further on the open data i would go further on the ai stuff but i believe we need a national level response to the movement of artificial intelligence in the economies of the world and how that changes national security. i'm hoping it's just the start of it. i would go way further ahead of everybody else as best as we possibly can to get to the position we need to in the market. our commercial partners have been wholly aware of the risks and they are shaping their capabilities. i'm sure they are outliers if you think about it that they've been shaping their products as well and they know we are aware and thoughtful about this too. we are going as fast as we can want to make sure we stay on the front of this and make sure we are a

to me from having, before nuclear war scenario, i previously wrote six books on the pentagon, cia, darpa and you know, 100-plus sources in each book, almost all of them at some point during a lengthy interview saying, i dedicated by life to preventing nuclear world war iii and most people said that to me with a kind of swelling pride and legitimately so. and so, during the previous administration when president trump was talking about fire and fury, all of that nuclear war rhetoric, i got to thinking about what all those sources had told me and i thought, what happens if deterrence fails, if prevention fails? what would that be like? and what i learned, didn't just shock me, it shocked me again and again and again and again. >> right. >> and that's what i put in the book. i put what i learned from top tier, upper echelon national security people who opened the door into this world so that i could see really what happens and as you know what reading the books, it happens in seconds and minutes, not days and weeks. >> right. i think it's 78 minutes, nuclear war takes. >> right around there

this arpa age thing which are supposed to be the health department equivalent of darpa.e deep research enterprise the defense department has, they are not doing anything. they are just supplementing funding for other agencies. you can go through whole sections and say what does this agency really do? there is so much redundancy. medicaid pays for air-conditioning conditioning in many places. there is also low income energy assistance program. that also pays for air conditioning. why should new york get this lockheed funding when they don't allow fracking and fracking pipeline in their state? and you have to ship natural gas all the way around the gulf of mexico or import it from europe if you want to get natural gas in the northeast. it's crazy. maybe lockheed should be eliminated for all those states in the northeast who won't allow fracking. there are all sorts of things you can do. there are a number of things you can do through executive order or a stroke of the pen. but a lot of it is going to require congressional action and there are plenty of congressmen who talk

silicon valley was built on the investments made by darpa, by nih, nsf, a lot of the technology was commercialized've got to invest in a.i. and the public research on a.i. >> do you think the government, i guess, taxing people to raise money to give to technology or to do research is better than just getting out of the way with regulations for silicon valley? >> well, we need sensible regulations to protect our kids. >> okay. >> to make sure -- look, on an a.i. chatgpt, you don't want someone asking it, how do you commit suicide? make sure there's regulation. how do you make a nuclear bomb? >> why raise the tax rate to 28% and then subsidize through the government for research and development? it just -- you're taking away on the one hand and then adding and getting the government involved on the other. just let them do it. >> this is why we've got -- >> let them do it at 21%. >> because you're along looking at investment that's ten years down the line. making transformative investment and change is something our government is good at. our tax receipts are only 17% of gdp right now. in the '90s, i

think about darpa to a brother said, the longer, as long as we had education in this country we had racialdiscrimination in schools. as long as we've had elections in this country with a racial discrimination in voting. as an ordinary pain, that's the things were fighting against. we can feel weary, we can feel weary but i think the thing that, i'm feeling sometimes weary and body but in spirit not at all because what i do hold onto is not just people fighting against that what we're fighting for. our organization, lawyers' committee for civil rights under law with talk about something wiggle the future we deserve, and all of the dreams and aspirations of this generation to design dispraise, taking the shorts, i don't know if you know what that means, taking the shorts. look it up. it's an old phrase. but you know i think about this generation. i think about all the things that of the hopes and dreams you have for my kids who are all three kids between ages of five and nine. i think what you want for them and what they want for themselves are not just wishes. they are not i see on the cake