The AI Tech Stack

Timeline

Status: In-progress

Description

Paladin Global Institute President Kemba Walden and Senior Director Devin Lynch published a report titled “The AI Tech Stack: A Primer for Tech and Cyber Policy” to provide policy, tech, and cyber practitioners with a framework for understanding AI systems. 

The Deep Tech team, including David Hoffman and Merritt Cahoon and undergraduate student Jojo Hong, substantively reviewed the paper. The primer is the first paper in a series breaking down each layer of the AI tech stack. The team will continue to work with Devin Lynch on the project as it evolves.

The report outlines the array of security risks, vulnerabilities, impacts, and security solutions associated with the AI technology stack. 

The report defines the stack’s layers as: 

• Governance: The framework that wraps around the whole AI technology stack. It aims to ensure responsible deployment through security protocols, legal constraints, ethical principles, and policies.
• Application: The user interface that transforms complex AI capabilities into accessible tools through browsers, APIs, dashboards, and other user interfaces.
• Infrastructure: The essential computational foundation that powers AI systems, enabling the intensive demands of training and inference through specialized hardware, cloud platforms, and energy resources.
• Models: The core computational component that processes data according to sophisticated algorithms to recognize patterns and generate predictions or decisions. This includes the machine learning approaches that enable systems to learn without explicit programming.
• Data: The foundation of AI systems, providing the raw material that fuels models. The quality, diversity, and quantity of this data largely determine the intelligence and capabilities of the final model. 

Team

Members

David Hoffman

Merritt Cahoon

Jojo Hong