Artificial Intelligence (AI) Use Case Inventory
Executive Order 13960, "Promoting the Use of Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence in the Federal Government," requires agencies to publish annual inventories of non-classified and non-sensitive artificial intelligence (AI) use cases.
In compliance with this executive order and further guidance provided by the Chief Information Officer Council, this page lists AI use cases that the U.S. National Science Foundation uses to advance its mission, enhance decision making or otherwise benefit the public. This list is also linked in a tabular format.
For more information, please contact NSF's chief AI official, Dorothy Aronson, at daronson@nsf.gov or (703) 292-4299.
On this page:
NSF's 2023 AI USE CASE INVENTORY
Updated December 2023
The proposal classifier groups proposals into different categories called clusters, helping program directors determine which panels should review which group of proposals. The clustering uses Natural Language Processing (NLP) on the project description or project summary of each proposal. All clusters are reviewed by program director determine whether the classification is valid or needs to be adjusted.
Use case ID: NSF-001
Managing organization: Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences (MPS)
Stage of development: Implementation
Date implemented: 2021
The resubmit checker takes a list of proposal IDs and returns a list of similar proposals submitted to NSF in the past, scored by their similarity. This is useful for identifying resubmitted proposals for several purposes: evaluating whether to return without review for lack of revision, ensuring continuity of merit review, and the analysis of broader resubmit trends.
Use case ID: NSF-002
Managing organization: Directorate for STEM Education (EDU)
Stage of development: Operation and maintenance
Date implemented: 2020
The Vocabulary Explorer finds labels similar to key words input into the tool. The similarity search is based on word2vec-like multidimensional embeddings, so it will take into account semantic similarities derived from word contexts.
Use case ID: NSF-003
Managing organization: Section of Evaluation and Assessment Capability (OIA/EAC)
Stage of development: Operation and maintenance
Date implemented: 2019
The Suggest Reviewer Dashboard supports the identification of potential reviewers for proposals. The tool matches new proposals to submitted proposals based on project summary, project description and proposal title to identify potential reviewers. The dashboard also contains links to details about suggested reviewers.
Use case ID: NSF-004
Managing organization: Division of Information Systems (OIRM/DIS)
Stage of development: Operation and maintenance
Date implemented: 2019