The Pentagon is gutting the team that tests AI and weapons systems

It is a significant overhaul of a department that in 40 years has never before been placed so squarely on the chopping block. Here's how today's defense tech companies, which have fostered close connections to the Trump administration, stand to gain, and why safety testing might suffer as a result. The Operational Test and Evaluation office is "the last gate before a technology gets to the field," says Missy Cummings, a former fighter pilot for the US Navy who is now a professor of engineering and computer science at George Mason University. Though the military can do small experiments with new systems without running it by the office, it has to test anything that gets fielded at scale. "In a bipartisan way--up until now--everybody has seen it's working to help reduce waste, fraud, and abuse," she says.