U.S. intelligence agencies are looking for the next best thing in analytics, particularly when it comes to artificial intelligence and similar solutions.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Nov. 16 issued a challenge: they want AI and similar technologies that can rapidly evaluate analytics products for the intelligence community. The “Xtend” contest builds on a previous Xpress challenge, which sought “opportunities for generating analytic products that surpass those crafted by traditional, highly-trained IC analysts.” Where Xpress offered a prize of $500,000, the complementary Xtend content is offering $75,000.

Xtend is a joint effort between the Office of the Director of Science and Technology within ODNI and the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence.

“Today’s human-based evaluation approaches are often subjective and introduce latency that constrains the IC’s ability to produce effective and timely intelligence products, and may inhibit potential gains offered by emerging approaches such as that demonstrated with the Xpress Challenge,” David Isaacson, DS&T program manager for the challenge, said in an release. “The Xtend Challenge will not only help the IC to determine the current state of the art in this area, it will also help the community to identify and begin to address the relevant research challenges.”

The Xtend challenge seeks technologies that can quickly and objectively evaluate one- to two-page analytic intelligence products against existing IC standards with minimal or no human intervention. Providers also should be able to explain how analysts and managers can understand, accept and be able to evaluate the trustworthiness – with minimal training, according to the release.

The deadline for final submissions is January 15, 2018. For more information, click here.


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