Air Force plans to stay ahead of HAL 9000 and prepare itself for AI use in new strategy Federal News Network

As the Defense Department continues to embrace artificial intelligence and even plans to possibly use it in operations as soon as next year, the Air Force is solidifying its focus on the technology by releasing a new strategy that addresses the use, ethics and workforce needs of AI in the service. The strategy, released Thursday, identifies AI as crucial to fielding a future Air Force, executing multi-domain operations and confronting threats before they reach the level of actual combat. Signed by acting Air Force Secretary Matt Donovan and Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein, the document hones in on five focus areas that the service thinks will properly develop AI for the service's needs. One focus area identifies data as a strategic asset, given that AI will need mass amounts of data that standardized for use by AI algorithms. "We will review our corporate processes and reform underlying critical aspects of agility principled on government-purpose data rights to ensure we are consistently generating training quality data for algorithmic development," the strategy states.