The Pentagon is making a massive push to accelerate the application of artificial intelligence to ships, tanks, aircraft, drones, weapons and large networks as part of a sweeping strategy to more quickly harness and integrate the latest innovations. Many forms of AI are already well-underway with US military combat systems, yet new technologies and applications are emerging so quickly that Deputy Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan has directed the immediate creation of a new Joint Artificial Intelligence Center. "The Deputy Secretary of Defense directed the DoD Chief Information Officer to standup the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center in order to enable teams across DoD to swiftly deliver new AI-enabled capabilities and effectively experiment with new operating concepts in support of DoD's military missions and business functions." DoD spokeswoman Heather Babb told Warrior Maven. Pentagon officials intend for the new effort to connect otherwise disparate AI developments across the services.

Fox News Flash top headlines for Sept. 23 are here. Check out what's clicking on Foxnews.com Drone fighter jets, hypersonic attack planes, artificial intelligence, lasers, electronic warfare and sensors woven into the fuselage of an aircraft are all areas of current technological exploration for the Air Force as it begins early prototyping for a new, 6th-Generation fighter jet to emerge in the 2030s and 2040s. While the initiative, called Next Generation Air Dominance(NGAD), has been largely conceptual for years, Air Force officials say current "prototyping" and "demonstrations" are informing which technologies the service will invest in for the future. "We have completed an analysis of alternatives and our acquisition team is working on the requirements. We are pretty deep into experimenting with hardware and software technologies that will help us control and exploit air power into the future," Gen. James Holmes, Commander, Air Combat Command, told reporters at the Association of the Air Force Air, Space and Cyber Conference.

File photo - U.S. soldiers from the 3rd Cavalry Regiment watch as CH-47 Chinook helicopter from the 82nd Combat Aviation Brigade lands after an advising mission at the Afghan National Army headquarters for the 203rd Corps in the Paktia province of Afghanistan December 21, 2014. Warrior Maven: What is the primary purpose of the Army's AI Task Force? Matty: The Army AI Task Force was established with a Secretary of the Army directive in October of 2018. There are four thrusts or top initiatives from the Secretary's directive. One component is we are leveraging AI to help our talent management in human resources.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is pursuing an unprecedented machine-learning "breakthrough" technology -- and pioneering a new cybersecurity method intended to thwart multiple attacks at one time and stop newer attacks less recognizeable to existing defenses. A DARPA-led "Lifelong Learning Machines" (L2M) program, intended to massively improve real-time AI and machine learning, rests upon the fundamental premise that certain machine-learning-capable systems might struggle to identify, integrate and organize some kinds of new or complicated yet-to-be-seen information. "If something new is different enough, the system may fail. This is why I wanted to have some kind of machine learning that learns during experiences. Systems do not know what to do in some situations," Hava Siegelmann, DARPA program manager at the Information Innovation Office and Professor of Computer Science at the University of Massachusetts.

FILE - The Pentagon is seen in this aerial view in Washington, in this March 27, 2008 file photo. The Pentagon is making a massive push to accelerate the application of artificial intelligence to ships, tanks, aircraft, drones, weapons and large networks as part of a sweeping strategy to more quickly harness and integrate the latest innovations. Many forms of AI are already well-underway with US military combat systems, yet new technologies and applications are emerging so quickly that Deputy Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan has directed the immediate creation of a new Joint Artificial Intelligence Center. "The Deputy Secretary of Defense directed the DoD Chief Information Officer to standup the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center in order to enable teams across DoD to swiftly deliver new AI-enabled capabilities and effectively experiment with new operating concepts in support of DoD's military missions and business functions." DoD spokeswoman Heather Babb told Warrior Maven.

The Pentagon is making a massive push to accelerate the application of artificial intelligence to ships, tanks, aircraft, drones, weapons and large networks as part of a sweeping strategy to more quickly harness and integrate the latest innovations. Many forms of AI are already well-underway with U.S. military combat systems, yet new technologies and applications are emerging so quickly that Deputy Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan has directed the immediate creation of a new Joint Artificial Intelligence Center. "The Deputy Secretary of Defense directed the DoD Chief Information Officer to standup the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center in order to enable teams across DoD to swiftly deliver new AI-enabled capabilities and effectively experiment with new operating concepts in support of DoD's military missions and business functions." DoD spokeswoman Heather Babb told Warrior Maven. Pentagon officials intend for the new effort to connect otherwise disparate AI developments across the services.

File photo - Troopers with the U.S. Army 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division fire the main gun round at a target during unit gunnery practice with newly acquired M1A1-SA Abrams tanks at Fort Stewart, Georgia, U.S. March 29, 2018. Picture taken March 29, 2018. The Army is engineering high-tech autonomy kits designed to give "robot" tanks and other armored combat vehicles an ability to operate with little or no human intervention, bringing new tactical and operational dimensions to the future of ground combat. Unmanned systems, utilized in a fast-evolving, high-threat ground combat operation, could enable robot vehicles to carry supplies, test enemy defenses and even fire weapons – all while manned vehicles operate at a safer distance. "A kit of hardware and software can be installed into different ground platforms to increase the level of autonomy," Osie David, Chief Engineer for Mission Command, Communications-Electronics Research, Development and Engineering Center, told Warrior Maven in an interview.

The Army is now crafting early requirements for what is expected to be a new attack helicopter -- beyond the Apache -- with superior weapons, speed, maneuverability, sensor technology and vastly-improved close-combat attack capability. "We know that in the future we are going to need to have a lethal capability, which drives us to a future attack reconnaissance platform. The Apache is the world's greatest but there will come a time when we look at leap ahead technology," Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville told a small group of reporters. A future attack-reconnaissance helicopter, now in its conceptual phase, is a key part of a wide-spanning, multi-aircraft Army Future Vertical Lift (FVL) program. FVL seeks a family of next-generation aircraft to begin emerging in the 2030s, consisting of attack, utility and heavy-class air assets.