The following article is a supplement to the MRC Report: The Biden Administration Waged War on Free Speech with 57 Censorship Initiatives.
Initiative #5
The Convergence Accelerator
Type of Censorship: Policy or rulemaking
Agencies Involved:
- National Science Foundation (NSF)
Summary:
Despite its innocuous name, “Track F” of the National Science Foundation (NSF)’s Convergence Accelerator was one of the Biden administration’s most ambitious efforts to build artificial intelligence (AI) weapons of mass deletion.
The NSF launched the “Convergence Accelerator” program during the first Trump administration. The Convergence Accelerator program is how the NSF works with — and funds — private research institutions so as to coordinate their work to achieve certain objectives, including better artificial intelligence (AI).
In 2021, Biden’s administration hijacked the Convergence Accelerator by formally creating a new “Track F” for its collaboration efforts. “Track F” was dedicated to building AI to actively target and delete speech the Biden administration viewed as “mis/disinformation.” Working with the censorship outfit Meedan, the “Track F” team discriminated to favor certain ethnicities when determining which “Fact-checker” to use when programming the AI.
Key Individuals:
- Sethuraman Panchanathan, NSF Director
- Mike Pozmantier, NSF Program Manager
