Measuring War: Cognitive Effects in the Age of AI - War on the Rocks

Editor's Note: This article was submitted in response to the call for ideas issued by the co-chairs of the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, Eric Schmidt and Robert Work. It addresses the first question (part a.) on the character of war, and the third question (part d.) on the types of data that would be most useful for developing applications. Billy Beane, general manager of the struggling Oakland Athletics baseball team, faced a problem in the early 2000s. He needed to field a competitive team with one of the league's smallest budgets. Beane turned to what became known as a "moneyball" approach -- a new analytical method that valued a player's ability to get on base over traditional statistics like batting average and home runs.