Saildrone Explorer unmanned surface vessels (USV) operate with USS Delbert D. Black (DDG-119) on Oct. 7, 2022. The Navy is thinking about artificial intelligence in two ways: the infrastructure to make unmanned systems work and technology meant to enhance how sailor and their commanders make decisions, a panel of technical and policy experts said Tuesday. The output provided by AI is there help the human or supplement manned operations with unmanned assets, said Brett Vaughan, Navy Chief AI Officer, speaking at the U.S. Naval Institute on Tuesday. A human will always be in the loop and play a central role. "By and large, the AI is there to augment and provide a human decision maker a range of options and recommendations," Vaughan said.

The Pentagon's Joint Artificial Intelligence Center recently started building a joint operating system and integration layer that combatant commands and other military components could eventually use to rapidly make and field artificial intelligence algorithms. This work is one key piece of the center's new Artificial Intelligence and Data Accelerator, or AIDA, JAIC Director Lt. Gen. Michael Groen confirmed this week during the NDIA 2022 Expeditionary Warfare Conference. "AIDA brings us, in small teams, out to the combatant commanders--now, for those of you who have been in combatant commands, or you're familiar with that environment--combat commanders have all of the challenges, all the problems and only some capability, right? And so what we're trying to do from an information advantage perspective is bring them the advantages of good data and good artificial intelligence-generating insights," he explained. Launched last year by Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks, AIDA marks a broad initiative to boost data-based decision-making across the military's 11 combatant commands.

Establishing strong data environments and strategies will be key to the adoption of artificial intelligence in the military, according to Lt. Gen. Michael Groen, the director of the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center at the Defense Department. Speaking in a webinar Wednesday on Federal News Network, Groen painted a picture of AI within DOD, emphasizing the need to cultivate an infrastructure that can handle a dynamic data environment. Groen described acquisition of AI technologies as a "generational transformation" that would take time, beginning with shifting DOD from a hardware-centric organization to a "world class software organization. "Getting our data strategies together is a really important component," he said. A major part of this will be changing the data ecosystem that DOD employs, specifically in regard to installing a common data environment to facilitate AI usage throughout the department.

The first aspect of cyber defense of AI starts with the networks, Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Michael S. Groen said today during a virtual fireside chat at the Billington CyberSecurity Summit. "The department is undergoing a little bit of a mind shift on networks and architecture. Our networks are a core piece of our warfighting architecture. Our networks are weapons, and, so, we have to treat them like weapons. We have to, we have to plan to protect them, make them resilient because everything that we're going to do in an artificial intelligence or data-driven way will depend on the security [of] those networks," he said.

The director of the Department of Defense's artificial intelligence clearinghouse hopes a new initiative will help combatant commands better make use of the department's data. The new Artificial Intelligence and Data Accelerator, or AIDA, is housed within the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center. "We're just now discovering what is the state of our data. Everybody loves to say that the Department of Defense has all kinds of data. Most of it's crap," Lt. Gen. Michael Groen, director of the JAIC, said during a pre-recorded interview shared at the Billington Cybersecurity Summit.

"The Russian military seeks to be a leader in weaponizing AI technology," Lt. Gen. Michael Groen, director of the Pentagon's Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, told National Defense. The JAIC -- which has been working to facilitate AI adoption across the Defense Department since 2018 -- recently commissioned a report by CNA, a research organization based in Arlington, Virginia, to examine Russia's developments. The report -- titled "Artificial Intelligence and Autonomy in Russia" -- identified more than 150 AI-enabled military systems in various stages of development, Groen said in an email in June. Key areas of interest include autonomous air, underwater, surface and ground platforms. The nation wants to use AI for electronic warfare, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and strategic decision-making processes as leaders pursue information dominance on the battlefield, Groen said.

I'll be moderating today's press briefing. Today it's my pleasure to introduce the director of the Department of Defense [Joint] Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC), Lieutenant General Michael Groen. Lieutenant General Groan is joined today by Dr. Jane Pinelis, who is the Chief of Test and Evaluation for the JAIC, and Ms. Alka Patel, who is the Chief of Responsible AI (Artificial Intelligence). We'll begin today's press briefing with an opening statement followed by questions. We've got people out in the line. And I think we'll be able to get to everybody today. LIEUTENANT GENERAL MICHAEL S. GROEN: Thank you, Arlo. And greetings to the members of the Defense Press Corps, really glad to be here with you today. I hope many of you got the opportunity to listen in to at least some of the AI symposium and technology exchange that we had this week. This week, it was our second annual symposium. We have over 1,400 participants in three days of virtualized content. I want to say thank you, ...

U.S. technological advantages over great power competitor China could be lost in less than 10 years without a robust and comprehensive artificial intelligence (AI) security strategy, according to the findings of an independent government commission. "For the first time since World War II, the United States' technological predominance -- which undergirds both our economic and military competitiveness -- is under severe threat by the People's Republic of China," Robert Work, vice chairman of the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, told a live-streamed Pentagon press briefing April 9 on the commission's final report. And the most important technology "that the United States must master is artificial intelligence and all of its associated technologies," Work added. Likening artificial intelligence to how harnessing electricity opened up a field of fields, Work said AI would affect quantum computing, healthcare, finance and military competition. Work, who served as deputy secretary of defense in the Obama and Trump administrations, stressed the immediate and long-term risks.

The US military needs to scale up its use of AI or be left behind by adversaries, Lt. Gen. Michael Groen, chief of the Pentagon's Joint AI Center (JAIC), told a recent conference of the National Defense Industrial Association, according to a report from UPI. While current military use of AI "is a step in the right direction, we need to start building on it," stated Groen, who was appointed head of the JAIC in October. He is the second director of JAIC, or "the jake" in Pentagon parlance, which was set up by Congress in 2018. The first director was Air Force Lt. Gen. John N.T. "Jack" Shanahan, who retired last year. Noting that China has said it intends "to be dominant in AI by 2030," the Pentagon has focused on a five-year program culminating in 2027.

The Pentagon's top artificial intelligence official warned Tuesday that the department's biggest competitive threat is obsolescence. "The biggest competitive threat is our own obsolescence," said Lt. Gen. Michael Groen, director of the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center. "I could walk out into the parking lot of the Pentagon, turn on my iPhone and join a data-driven, completely integrated environment. I can get whatever services I want. I can review, I can find, I can research. I can do it all at my fingertips. I can't do any of that on a defense network."