Join the Intelligence Project on Wednesday, October 15th to hear about the promise and perils of AI and intelligence analysis from David Priess. Dr. Priess in a specialist on intelligence analysis and high-level interactions between intelligence and policy. In this seminar he will draw on his experience from US national security roles, the nonprofit world, academic study, and the private sector, to discuss how AI is best suited and worst suited to perform in intelligence analysis, and possible paths forward.
This session is open to Harvard ID holders and will be held under the Chatham House rules. Registration is required.
Dr. David Priess is currently Global Head of Training and Education for the US corporate risk intelligence firm Emergent Risk International and a senior fellow at the Michael V. Hayden Center for Intelligence, Policy, and International Security. In the past decade has been Director of Intelligence for the start-up US national security training company Bedrock Knowledge, Publisher of the national security media outlet Lawfare, and co-host of the Chatter national security podcast. Before these roles, Dr. Priess served at the CIA as an intelligence officer, a manager, and a daily intelligence briefer as well as at the State Department as a desk officer during the presidencies of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. During the Bush administration, he personally briefed the President’s Daily Brief for more than a year to the Attorney General and FBI Director and occasionally into the White House.
Additionally, Dr. Priess has written two books. For The President’s Book of Secrets (2016), which relates how US intelligence officials brief the commander in chief on the most sensitive information in the world, he became the first author to interview for one book every living former President, Vice President, and CIA Director from previous administrations.
He has taught graduate classes on intelligence at George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government and undergraduate classes on international relations at GMU, the George Washington University, and Duke University. He has appeared often in broadcast media like CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, NPR, and the BCC to discuss the presidency, national security, and intelligence issues, and has written for outlets including the Washington Post, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, War on the Rocks, Lawfare, the Daily Beast, Politico, the Cipher Brief, The Bulwark, and the Houston Chronicle. And Dr. Priess holds a BA from Illinois Wesleyan University and an MA and PhD in political science from Duke University.
