THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | NOVEMBER 2023 15 Institution’s Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technology Initiative; and Ilan Manor, a senior lecturer in the Department of Communication Studies at Ben Gurion University of the Negev. Vivian Walker, the executive director and designated federal officer for the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, moderated the event and later wrote a blog post about it for the University of Southern California Center on Public Diplomacy. Hunt explained the ways his staff in Conakry uses ChatGPT to “super charge” their work, offering a demonstration and explaining how to get the most out of the service. He stressed, however, that his team is trained to consider anything produced by ChatGPT to be “a starting point” for the final draft. Manor encouraged the audience to “imagine a ‘StateGPT’ able to analyze decades of internal documents generated by the State Department. Diplomats could view this internal AI to track changes in other nations’ policy priorities, identify shifts in foreign public opinion, or even identify changes in how America narrates its policies around the world.” Jessica Brandt discussed how autocrats use AI and large language models to create mass propaganda campaigns, and offered ideas for using AI and public diplomacy to fight these campaigns. A full transcript of the event can be found at https://bit.ly/State-AI-event. State’s First-Ever TopSecret Cloud Strategy The State Department’s chief information officer (CIO) and director of the Technology and Innovation Office spoke on the Federal News Network’s “Ask the CIO” program on Aug. 28. CIO Jimmy Hall Jr. talked about the department’s strategic plan and its firstever top-secret cloud strategy, which, he said, offered a “road map” for modernizing IT infrastructure and improving efficiency and security with cloud computing while still meeting strategic objectives. “What we’re looking for is a secure environment,” said Hall. “One that’s coupled with a data strategy, and that enables our analysts and diplomats to enjoy the benefits of either open source intelligence or some of the more classified sources of intelligence that they have a need to know.” The strategy will not be publicly released, Hall said. Iran and Saudi Arabia Exchange Ambassadors For the first time in seven years, Iran and Saudi Arabia have exchanged ambassadors. Iran officially reopened its embassy in Saudi Arabia in June following years of hostility between the two nations that began when Saudi diplomatic missions in Iran were attacked by protestors in All four Services have a lot in common. … • The Foreign Service represents an attractive career to university students in all four countries on a par with and sometimes higher than other professions. … • Most individual officers are sure their career choice has been the right one. They have a sense of satisfaction about their work and only a normal amount of conviction that they are overworked and underpaid. • There is a growing concern over the role of economics in international relations and a feeling that Foreign Services must produce economically trained officers in order to remain competitive with other government agencies interested in this field. • There is almost no feeling that a nation’s Foreign Service should mirror the nation. Quality is a more important consideration; “elitism” is not an ugly word when applied to ability and intellect. • There is some attention being given to the role of women in Foreign Services and an awareness that a woman’s career may have to suffer if she marries. There is no intention, however, to offer special consideration to women and their careers at the expense of smooth operation of the Service. —FSO Pratt Byrd, from an article of the same title in the November 1973 FSJ. The article is based on a case study the author prepared during the Senior Seminar in Foreign Policy. A Look at Four Foreign Services: Brazil–West Germany–Israel–Japan, Part II 50 Years Ago
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy ODIyMDU=