Episode 2: A Conversation with David Bray (Part One)

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Today we're talking with Dr. David Bray. David, welcome.

Great to see you. Bob. Glad to be here.

Now David, a lot of people in our network know you already, but a lot don't. So I want to give my personal introduction of what I know about your bio and then let you correct the record. David, for as long as I've known you, you've been involved in key national security issues, including R and D, the future of technology, how the intelligence community should better structure itself to meet a dynamic future. But also topics of biodefense, encountering bioterror, and how we need to build the right structures to prevent attacks against us from hostile adversaries using bioweapons, but also understanding pandemics. And I know you've also got direct hands on experience in tracking what has happened in past pandemics. And through this all you have been a very forward leaning, community focused social person who has really built a strong network of people around you. These positive change agents that have been with you for years. No matter what you've done, you've also got time as a enterprise technology leader, as the CIO of the FCC, where you helped both internally, the FCC and externally help that organization do the best it could. And as you did that, one of the things I noticed is you helped a massive migration and modernization effort at FCC to leverage the cloud computing, for example, as well as many other things. Now you are. Oh, and another thing I want to mention about you that I think people should understand. You dedicated a lot of your time and energy and talent into making sure that the Internet is focused on us humans through your leadership of the People Centered Internet, a nonprofit organization which has really been instrumental. I want to talk about all that and I also want to talk about your position at the Atlantic Council where you stood up the Geotech center and the Geotech Commission. But before getting into that, would you tell me what did I miss about your background?

I think you hit all the high points. I would say if there's anything about me, I sometimes feel like Sherlock Holmes where I need to have a case. And so if there's anything about my career, it's like every three or four years I'm looking for what's that next sort of near impossible mission or that challenge. And that that's why it's probably led me to national security, because that's there's always challenges there and sort of bridging Worlds, whether it's bridging the world of technology with policy or bridging the world of the civilian side with national security. I can't seem to fit in any one box. And sometimes that is a good thing, and sometimes that means I get a lot of spears and arrows run my way. But it's, it's always an honor to be with you, Bob, because you yourself have also been a positive change agent and very dedicated to national security as well. And I look forward to our discussion today about both what the Atlantic Council is doing with its Geotech Center, COVID 19, and what does this mean for all of us with the future ahead.

Great, thanks. And you know, I think it is a very interesting time. And you just nailed it. You really did, because all these national security things you're working now are totally relevant to every citizen. In fact, every person on the globe is now involved in this current fight against COVID 19. And it's. We need connectors like you to help us understand it and also find the right action to move forward. But before getting into the COVID 19, I wanted to ask you about the Atlantic Council and this new geotech center that you've stood up. And would you give us a little context on that?

Sure. So the Atlantic council's It's a nonprofit, 501C3. It was created in 1961. And actually a little bit about the backstory. It was created because folks from the Truman administration, which was Democratic, and folks from Republican administration that were Eisenhower, they were, they were having differences of internal policy politics, not say, unlike today. And so the Atlantic Council was created to say, look, you know, there's politics, but let's step above that and let's think about not just the United States, but let's think about our allies. And then this time they're referring to NATO with regards to the Cold War and the values of racism, really people, prosperity and peace that how can we move this forward? And thinking about both a defense strategy that would involve stronger with allies, also thinking about a social strategy, a technology strategy, how can we work together to make sure that the values that Europe, the United States and North America hold dear can actually continue going forward. And that was 1961. And it's quite fascinating that now, 59 years later, I actually made the choice, having spent the last, as you mentioned, three and a half years with the People Centered Internet Coalition, really enjoyed working with Vince Cerf. He was a great person to work with as the chair. And all the activity we were doing with the People Centered Internet I got approached to say, would you be interested in standing up a new center at the Atlantic Council focusing on basically called Geotech, the Geopolitics of technology. How is technology changing geopolitics? And how are geopolitics changing how technology is done and implemented? And that really was too good an opportunity to turn down. I talked to Vinnie. We can always do more things together. In fact, we are. He's actually going to be a commissioner with the Geotech center. So we're still going to be collaborating, but it really was a chance to stand up something new. And so we actually launched in early March, which was right. It was literally right before COVID 19 really sort of hit the United States hard. And again, we are focusing on the fact that technology does change societies, it changes economies and it also changes what you can do. And so with COVID 19 now we are in deep conversations both with the public sector. Part of the United Council is we do trusted non attribution conversations with not just the United States government, but the governments of other countries, including Latin America, parts of Latin America, South America, Africa, Southeast Asia, Europe. And so we've been called upon by different governments that want to have briefings about what does COVID 19 mean for them. And then also behind the scenes, deep action with the private sector about what they can do to mobilize to support the actions of the public sector. Especially with COVID 19. Because from 1960 onwards up until now, all the data has shown societies that are more open, societies that do separate their private sector from their public sectors, in other words, less autocratic societies generally. In fact, they always have responded better to crises in the long run. I hope COVID 19 is not the one that disproves the case that autocratic societies that don't separate their private sector and public sector can mobilize faster. But that's incumbent upon us, not just in the United States, but with our allies around the world, to show that those countries that are open can work between their private and their public sectors to mobilize. Because the only way to get through COVID 19 is to get through it together.

Right, thanks. Good context and it's good context on the Geotech Center. And now I wonder, your charter was to cover many topics and this must be dominating your time. Are you also still paying attention to these other subjects of artificial intelligence and what that's going to do for humanity, for example?

Yes. So separate from the immediate response to COVID 19, we are standing up, as I mentioned, this Geotech commission. And so this commission actually has four members of Congress. It has Senator Mark Warner from Virginia, Senator Rob Portman from Ohio, as well as Representative McCall from Texas, and Representative Suzanne Delbane from Washington State. And so these are the four members of Congress that are serving as honorary co chairs. We also have industry co chairs, including John Goodman, CEO of Accenture Federal, and Teresa Carlson, Senior Vice President at aws. We have other luminaries as well. I mentioned Bent Cerf. We have Shirley M. Jackson, who's the dean at rpi. We have Sue Gordon, who was the principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence, and several other amazing individuals that have chosen to spend their time as commissioners with the goal of thinking through what are the strategic and actual practical, implementable things that we want to do to make sure new technologies and data. And so we've expanded to say it's not just technology, it's also thinking about data. To include data and AI to include personalized precision medicine to include additive manufacturing, 3D printing to include low earth orbits that are going to increasingly be satellites that are increasingly commercial that are in space. These waves of technologies that are coming out in parallel over the next five to 10 years, what are the strategic choices we need to make and the actionable steps that we need to do, not just in the United States, but again with our allies in Europe and around the world to make sure that the future is better than the one we're currently in. Because if we don't think through these steps now, I am very much concerned and why I joined the Geotech center is these waves of technologies that are happening in parallel. We may find more autocratic regimes are able in the short term to capitalize on these new technologies like data and AI faster. In fact, we're seeing this in some respects already in a large country of 1.4 billion people. And the concern is if we don't get ahead of this curve and think about how we link technology and data with better initiatives involving public sector and private sector leaders, we may find that the future is more autocratic or results in something like surveillance state or surveillance capitalism to our detriment.

Yes, David, and I think I'm very glad to hear you saying this because, you know, all of us need to focus a lot of attention on COVID 19 right now, but we also need to understand life is going on and technology continues to advance. And COVID 19 will one day we will get through it. And we need to keep thinking about all of these technologies and how they're going to play together and very glad that you guys are doing that.

Well, And I would say Bob and I appreciate it. And again, it's going to take. And I'm glad to be here with you on OODA Loop because it's going to take all of us. And I hope you and your members of OODA Loop can help give us input as to what we should be sort of spotting and addressing. Because you're absolutely right. Things are changing so fast that no one individual or no one group is going to be able to actually focus on everything. But if we do it in a network effect, I think that's how we're going to respond better. And as you noted, I mean, technology keeps on moving. Data advances and what we can do with data keep on moving as well. I think what COVID 19 is doing and what I've seen so far is it's actually accelerating a lot of the trends that were already there. We are already seeing people start thinking about, well, what can we use data and AI to do beyond just getting you to click on more ads or deliver ads better? Because that's unfortunately what the west has really used a lot of data and AI for at the moment. Aside from some other niche purposes that you and I know about, that it's mainly just about getting people to click on ads. And so there are new things we can do involving informing you better about your health and informing you better about the choices before you or the actions you need to do if you're a CEO of a company, informing you more about where you might have supply chain disruptions. All these things are now just accelerated by COVID 19, because just like if it was a actual war, unfortunately it's not. But if it's a war against the virus, which is what I think it is, and it's all of us against the virus, that war in some respects requires people to look for new innovations and new tools to come out more successfully through this period of crisis. And so we where in the past there may have been different polarizations of the body politic, increasingly dividing wedges in Europe and the United States about where we should go. And I'm not saying they're still there. In fact, if anything, misinformation about COVID 19 is probably the worst I've ever seen. We had misinformation about 9, 11, we had misinformation about the anthrax response to 2001 when I was with the CDC's bioterrorism program. But in some respects, not everybody had a smartphone. And now that everybody does, in some respects, it's almost resulting in all of Us, whether wittingly or unwittingly, almost contributing to the noise about what's really going on and actually creating this misinformation space that makes the actual activity of response hard. But what COVID 19 has done is it's accelerated these trends in terms of new technologies being brought to the forefront to get us both through the immediate response. And more importantly, what's the recovery necessary to rebuild economies around the world.

Well, one of the things I want to capture that you just said, which I'll make sure this gets to all of our OODA members, is an action for us. We all need to keep track of these trends and the things that we need to bring to your attention. We're going to do that because all of us want to help. And we're also all interested in what we need to do for our own businesses and our own government organizations to make sure we survive and thrive. And, you know, as we do that, we continue to scan the horizon and figure out, you know, what's important for us and what's important for others. And I'll make sure that we feed that information to you. I have a kind of a related point and I have a feeling that I know how you would answer this, but I just want to get your views on it. And that is many people are saying this COVID 19 crisis is a black swan event, unpredictable. No one could have seen this coming. We have no experience with this. And it was a total surprise. And I'm not just hearing that from a few people, I'm hearing it from lots of people, experienced professional journalists, politicians. I'm not hearing that from business leaders, by the way. Business leaders seem to have been very savvy and aware of this. And then there's, you know, one article, the headline was something like the greatest intelligence failure in United States history is the COVID 19 crisis. What are your views on that?

Yes. So yes, you know, we were talking a little bit earlier about the challenges of making sense of everything that's going on and how, you know, if anything, with COVID 19, there's a whole lot of misinformation. And I think in this case, if I could bridge those that are saying that with what at least I've seen. And what I actually know is maybe what they're trying to say is this was a low probability, high consequence event that nobody could predict when it might happen. But it's very specific to say when it might happen. Because I think a lot of us, with public health community involving cdc, again, we had a biotourism Preparedness Response Program for a reason. But also with the National Security Intelligence Community, we knew it was only a matter of time when a low probability event would happen. The challenge of course being identifying when it might occur. And so from my own experiences, for example, I mean, we were created with the Bioterrorism Preparedness Response Program. I joined in November of 2000. I was actually still finishing my undergrad degree at the time, actually in both computer science and biology. But I had already worked for the US government when I was 15 and gotten security clearance when I was 17. So they sort of approached me and said, hey, you know, you're already working with the CDC doing other work. Would you like to actually help join the Bioterrorism Preparedness Response Program? Which of course, when you are, you know, a young 20 something, you're like, sure, of course. And it was, but it was interesting because about every six months we had people saying, you don't need to exist, you're a Cold War relic. Why do we need a Bioterrorism Preparedness Response Program? And we would say, well wait, the sarin gas attacks that happened in 1995, it might happen here. And then similarly, we were actually paying the former Soviet republics to disarm. And we discovered that they had things they called were plague labs that were really stockpiling smallpox, unfortunately, because it was a, it was a natural pathogen with a mortality rate of about 30%, which is fortunately not anything what COVID 19 is. I raised that though, because until that low probability high consequence event occurs, everybody said you don't need to exist, you have your funding cut. I mean, we were only 30 people with a budget of about 30 million people for bioterrorism preparation response. And it was actually scheduled weeks in advance for me to give a briefing to the CIA and the FBI and other state public health officials as to what we would do if a Buyer's husband event happened regarding technology associated with the Laboratory Response Network. And that briefing was scheduled for September 11th at 9 o' clock in the morning. 2001, 8:34. Of course the world changed. We deal with the response at 9 11. That briefing's canceled. We don't sleep for three weeks. We make sure there's not a secondary biological event associated with 9 11. Stand down from high alert on October 1st. I end up briefing the CIA. I flew up to McLean and briefed the Interagency Intelligence Committee on Terrorism on October 3rd and flew back to Atlanta only to find the first case of anthrax showed up 24 hours later in Florida and the CDC. Our group had only trained the Florida State Public Health Lab as how to identify anthrax in August of 2001. So, like all things, there are people that see this, but the challenge is a lot of people are saying that'll never happen, or that's so low probability. Why should I focus on this when I have all these immediate, urgent issues now? And so I would say the same thing with COVID 19. There were people that, I mean, we knew H1N1, we knew Ebola, we knew these things were likely. And as we were on a planet that's increasingly connected, it was only a matter of time before unfortunately, a pandemic would happen. But I think what was happening was in an era in which funding was being cut and you had to make hard choices, plus we had seen both H1N1 and Ebola. It never really got to Europe and United States. That led leaders to, to say, well, we don't need to continue to fund state health departments. We don't need to continue to have all those reserves in place. And so when it actually does happen, that low probability event that you can't identify specifically when it's going to occur, but you know it will occur, now we're left sort of playing catch up because we've actually, we've not invested in being prepared. And the challenge is, of course, had we invested in being prepared and it didn't happen this year, but it didn't happen until maybe five or six years later. You may have people criticizing, saying, why are we spending all that money on state health departments? Why are we spending all that money on CDC? That's just waste, right?

Why did you buy 100 million respirators, all these other things? Why are you investing in that? That's very well put, David. I think it really is. And it applies to so many other domains too. With that said, I guess we do need to, I believe, think, how should we think critically about this? Because we don't want this is going to occur in the future also. And we want people to be aware, not just in pandemics, but all these different domains that we have to apply critical thought and when warning is given, apply the appropriate amount of thought and the appropriate amount of investment. And just, I think having guys like you lead us through this is important. Which leads to my next question. What lessons have you learned from watching previous pandemics that are relevant to this one that maybe we should pay attention to?

Right. So the strength of the United States is we do have a federalized system and that actions are done best at state and local levels. And that's something that I think the founders believed in and that's something they empowered. So I would say right now, the federal government, the best thing they can do, as we saw with other pandemics and like West Nile we were dealing with or with the anthrax response, is as much as impossible. Empower the states. And I think that's something we need to do to, to help the United States. At the same time, what the federal government can also do, aside from empowering the states and localities to respond, is we've got to think globally. The US Is if there's anything we've done and the thing that we are expected to do is we are here to help lead in times of crises amongst the world and recognize, yes, every country is right now trying to deal with their own local populations. But what would it do if we reached out to the G7 or the G20 and said, look, let's figure out a economic strategy together to help rebuild the world and again, we can each keep on doing our own individual nation state actions. But if we show it as strengths together, I guarantee that'll probably uplift markets and actually restore some confidence that we're going to get through this. I think right now a lot of the panic is simply people feeling like there is no world strategy. And so in the absence of world strategy, investors are very concerned. So I raised that because I think what I saw with SARS is again, it never really got to the United States. But you, but you saw markets tank in Southeast Asia and it only came back. And in fact we actually got approached, I can't name the companies, but we got approached by companies that approached the CDC afterwards saying we would pay the federal government to prevent a future sars. And the trouble is we said aside from receiving money through taxes, we don't know how to receive your money. And then two, we can't guarantee 100% that there's never going to be something like this. But I think we need to show both empowerment of the state and local edge to respond to. Since the President has declared the National Defense act, it would be very interesting if the National Guard and or the military could help with mobilizing ventilators that are not being used in some places of the country right now to help those places, say New York City or California that need them with the idea that if they're needed back where they were originally from, later they can be brought back. But we need to start working both in terms of Empowering the edge, working across the nation and then also thinking about what we do on the world stage.

Great, thanks. I also noticed that you have been writing and the rest of your team has been writing a lot about lessons that organizations should consider for their own survival. How do they survive and thrive in this period. So they're ready to come back when the pandemic passes. Can you share any insights there for us?

Sure, yeah. So it was a collaboration with Jason Wang. I want to give a shout out to him of Cypress Advisors. We he he had seen the response to SARS from a perspective of an investor. And I obviously been with the Bioterrorism Preparedness Response Program and we're really recommending people to recognize, you know, you first need to assess, you know, where are you at risk. Make sure you actually increase your liquidity because you're going to need to be able to pivot and adjust. So increase your ability to be adjustable. What I use the phrase is Semper Gumby in these times of challenge. And then don't look at the crisis as simply being a negative. You know, you're hired or you're brought in or you found a company because you are willing to take risk and you're expected to be someone that is willing to take informed risk. If you're risk adverse in the middle of a crisis, that is a self fulfilling prophecy. So look at, you know, it's worth noting that the word crisis in Mandarin is the same word as pivot point or opportunity. And so, you know, think about how this is an opportunity to reshape how you do business. I would say the same is true for nations too. I mean this is, if anything it might actually be where we all can take this moment. Obviously, yes, immediately have to deal with the response and help save lives. But then sort of say what were things that maybe we weren't doing right before the crisis or things that weren't the best of our line of business or the things that we shouldn't been focusing on. How can we pivot and adjust them now that the world has changed? I mean, now that things that you and I are talking via video, I've already seen companies like Home Depot where you can actually schedule in advance your order and then you actually show up and have it ready for you right away as opposed to wandering the large store trying to find it. I mean that's a massive improvement that hopefully people will keep on doing even post COVID 19 as a better service delivery. So companies can look at this as, yes, it's challenging yes, you got to assess your risk, increase your liquidity. You may have to make some cuts here and there, but it's also an opportunity to rethink your business model, not just for the immediate COVID 19 response, but but for the new world involving all these new technologies. The future of work and how we work, I really think in a distributed fashion where we're working online more and we're working in a more net centric way.

David, that helps a lot. And I wanted to say not only will we be sharing this video broadly, but I'll share a link to that report you just did broadly because it has a lot of insightful commentary and advice. And also I want to transition to the second part of our discussion. Let's wrap this up on pandemics.

Now.

I wanted to ask, do you have any concluding thoughts for us, actions that people should take to stay safe or to protect their company or to protect the nation that you want to leave us with?

Sure. I think just two real quick. I mean, first, we all have a social responsibility to try and do actions that, that help put the community less at risk. And so while you may feel healthy, while you may feel like everything's good, make sure you are thinking about not just yourself and your family, but thinking about the community and what you can do to lessen the risk of the community through exposure or risk and things like that. And then the second is the second step of that, which is, okay, so reduce risk both for yourself and the community, but then also think about what you can do differently to make sure the community is resilient and stronger as a result of this. Again, I was talking about the strength of the United States is empowering the state and local edges. You know, yes, maybe we can't get physically together to do things like volunteer efforts at the moment, but we can at least maybe reach out and say to your neighbors and say, you know, if you want, I'm going to be going to pick, maybe have some elderly neighbors. I'm going to be picking up some groceries. If you want, I can pick it, you can call them and say, or email them. I'll pick up some groceries for you if you want, and I can leave them outside your door. Other things like call, call me anytime if you need help with getting to a hospital or something like that. I think if anything, we need to get to know our localities better, our neighborhoods better, because we will get through this as a whole if we work together on this. And I just want to make sure that's something that we do not just in the United States, but around the world, because I've seen what happens with pandemics and with biotourism response and emergency responses. People sometimes give in to fear and that results in selfishness. And, and what we need to do is make sure we don't give into that fear and we start thinking about selflessness and we need to obviously protect our families. But what can we do about the greater community as a whole too? Great.

Thanks, David. I think that's a great way to end this segment. We'll have you back for our next segment where we'll talk about the future of technology, the future of international relations, geopolitics, intelligence, counterintelligence, and all those dimensions of this crisis. Thanks, David.

Thank you, Bob.

David, I'm actually going to end this now and I'm going to email you a brand new link to click on for the next one. Is that okay?

Sounds good. I will pull up my Gmail now.

Thanks for listening to this. OODA Loop production. For the latest analysis on cybersecurity, technology and global risks, please visit www.oodaloop.com.