The Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office (CDAO) Directorate for Digital Services (DDS) has launched a website (www.hackthepentagon.mil) to accompany their long-running program: Hack the Pentagon (HtP). DDS launched HtP in 2016, using bug bounties as an innovative way to secure critical Department of Defense (DoD) systems and assets. HtP invites vetted, independent security researchers, known as "ethical hackers", to discover, investigate, and report vulnerabilities, which DoD can then remediate. DDS built the HtP website as a resource for Department of Defense organizations, vendors, and security researchers to learn how to conduct a bug bounty, partner with the CDAO DDS team to support bug bounties, and participate in DoD-wide bug bounties. "With the HtP website launch, CDAO is scaling a long running program, which historically offered services on a project-by-project basis, by offering the Department better access to lessons learned and best practices for hosting bug bounties," said Dr. Craig Martell, Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Officer.

After more than 100 days on the job, the U.S. Department of Defense's top artificial intelligence official said Thursday that the office's strategy will take a down-up approach and start with data. "It's true that most of my career has been in AI, but I don't think most of my work here at DoD will be about AI," Craig Martell, the Pentagon's first Chief Digital and AI Officer, said at the 2022 Intelligence & National Security Summit in National Harbor, Maryland. The Pentagon tapped Martell, a former head of machine learning at Lyft, to oversee its AI efforts this spring. The office subsumed multiple other defense digital authorities, including the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center and the Defense Digital Services, and reached full operational capability on June 1. While much of the talk about the CDAO has focused on its role as the Pentagon's leading AI authority, Martell said more attention and energy needs to be paid to data, which he said serves as the basis of the office's "hierarchy of needs."

Tom believes that the global information technology market will jump from 3.5 trillion to 8.5 trillion in the next five years, mostly because of AI. This will be achieved by lowering the cost of production and delivering products and services with greater safety, greater cybersecurity, and lower environmental impact. That said, Tom recognizes the consequences of AI. He warns companies that if they do not adapt to new technologies, they will cease to be competitive, and he believes the U.S. will be in trouble if they do not win what he describes as a non-kinetic war over AI with China. We also Tom's belief that large organizations have the advantage in the new generation of 21st-century technology, how Tom stays motivated after a long career of success, Tom's view on the global rush at the boardroom and the CEO's office to digitally transform their company, among other topics.