Therefore, the Defense Department has a keen interest in taking the lead in AI research and development, said Air Force Gen. John E. Hyten, who spoke yesterday at the 2020 Department of Defense Artificial Intelligence Symposium and Exposition. When most people think about how AI is created, they think it's all about the algorithms, he said. While algorithms are critical, they are just one of the seven building blocks that comprise AI, the others being data, software, computing, ethics, engagement with industry and international cooperation. "Algorithms, to me, are actually one of the easier problems to solve," Hyten said. "But algorithms without the other building blocks are useless, especially when it comes to data and computing."

WASHINGTON: China may lead the world in some aspects of artificial intelligence, such as surveillance and censorship. But in the ways that matter most for future warfare, "the US is still ahead compared to China [in terms of] sophistication and breadth," says the acting director of the Pentagon's Joint AI Center. "The question becomes, how can we quickly adopt this and bring this into the DoD?" Nand Mulchandani asked. It's not the US Department of Defense that's leading the world on AI – although there are definitely some clever coders in the DoD – but American companies, which have invested massively in cutting-edge techniques driven by such mundane missions as targeting online advertising. "[We're] absorbing and wielding it, as opposed to building it from scratch," he said, and that's a big advantage.