No tech leadership impact---it’s about strategy.

What will advances in artificial intelligence (AI) mean for national security? This year in War on the Rocks, technical and non-technical experts with academic, military, and industry perspectives grappled with the promise and peril of AI in the military and defense realms. War on the Rocks articles discussed issues ranging from the different ways international competitors and military services are pursuing AI to the challenges AI applications present to current systems of decision-making, trust, and military ethics. War on the Rocks contributors added to our understanding of the trajectory of military AI and drew attention to critical remaining questions. A key takeaway is that technical developments in AI probably represent less than half the battle in attempting to effectively integrate AI capabilities into militaries. The real challenge now, both in the United States and abroad, is going beyond the hype and getting the right people, organizations, processes, and safeguards in place.

How Militaries Will Apply AI

The seemingly boundless potential applications of AI, from AlphaGo to Artificial General Intelligence, raise tough questions about how and where militaries should prioritize AI development and integration. Michael Sulmeyer and Kathryn Dura argued that AI-based automated network defenses in the cyber domain could be an obvious area for U.S. investments to minimize vulnerabilities in a cost-effective way. Connor McLemore and Hans Lauzen identified broader areas where AI may have the greatest strategic impact: those where machines have an edge over human speed, agility, and labor intensity and where machines can effectively identify patterns.

Just how quickly should militaries adopt AI into weapons systems and operational concepts? Jeff Cummings, Scott Cuomo, Olivia Garard, and Noah Spataro made the case for a revolutionary approach. The Marines, they argued, should capitalize on the promise of AI to prepare for likely operational scenarios and to help speed the development of the smaller-scale, close-combat lethality the Pentagon demands. In other domains, though, the military may need to pursue AI integration along a more evolutionary pathway. Shmuel Shmuel spelled out some of the specific tradeoffs in firepower, mobility, and cost that strategists will need to navigate in integrating AI into weapons systems. Such complexities in balancing strategy and budget may provide a good rationale, as Dan Wassmuth and Dave Blair recommended for the Air Force, to target gradual change when applying AI in combat.

Organizing Implementation

During periods of changing technology, the victors in international politics are generally those militaries capable of making organizational change to take advantage of technological change. Along these lines, multiple War on the Rocks writers have suggested that technical challenges to strategic AI development could pale in comparison to the task of organizing a military acquisitions complex to achieve it. Richard Kuzma sounded the alarm for Pentagon leaders: Integrating AI means getting infrastructural changes right from the start. Nailing down long-term strategic goals may be second-order to making the unsexy reforms — prioritizing enterprise-wide data labeling, cloud-building, and software developer-user teaming — that will enable military AI no matter its specific applications. New systems to develop and manage the information — and human expertise — generated in AI testbeds like the Athena platform and others will require further innovation in resource organization.

Energetic, well-resourced leadership, as always, will be key to getting things done. Just as the benefits of undersea naval propulsion and aviation were only realized thanks to innovative figures like Adm. Rickover and Adm. Moffett, respectively, today’s military services will need leaders empowered to move forward applications of AI into the force.

Realizing AI’s promise to reduce personnel costs and increase military effectiveness will require keeping implementation costs down. Setting ambitious goals may induce innovation-building pressures. But even if militaries keep costs down and set lofty goals, at the end of the day, AI likely won’t be worth the investment without organization-wide change.

Managing Humans to Manage AI

As Jacquelyn Schneider noted, the Third Offset counterintuitively turns the expected ascendency of machine over man on its head: “In contrast to the first or second offsets, in which the United States was able to double down on the development of physical components of technology… the autonomy arms race is all about talent and manpower.”

If battlefield AI is to be revolutionary, War on the Rocks writers argued this year, the U.S. military may need to make even larger changes in how it recruits, trains, and keeps the humans required to build and operate AI systems. A strategic “AI edge” against peer competitors will come from the “intellectual edge” that Mick Ryan argued can only be developed by adapting professional military education at all levels. McLemore and Eric Jimenez and Sebastian Bae pointed to potential lessons from naval nuclear schools and the wargaming profession for developing a competitive military AI career track.