The good, the bad, and the bizarre in the AI provisions of the U.S. annual defense policy bill

The annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that Congress is about to pass contains multiple AI provisions, and a Tech Policy Press article categorizes them into governance progress, bizarre provisions, and serious flaws. Sections 6602 and 6603 require intelligence agencies to track and evaluate the effectiveness, safety, fairness, and other performance of AI they procure and develop, and to establish testing standards and benchmarks for publicly available models. Section 1654 prohibits the Secretary of Defense from outsourcing kinetic missile defense capabilities to subscription or pay-per-use models, and Section 1061 requires the Pentagon to report to congressional defense committees on waivers for autonomous weapons development. The article argues that the bill is a clear step backward in procurement pricing disclosure, with Section 1804 raising the mandatory disclosure threshold from $2 million to $10 million, and Section 1826 exempting non-traditional defense contractors entirely from certified cost data requirements. The bill also prohibits intelligence agencies from using the Chinese AI model DeepSeek.