Potomac Officers Club to Host Artificial Intelligence for Maneuver Virtual Event

In February, the Department of Defense (DoD) issued five Ethical Principles for Artificial Intelligence (AI): Responsible, Equitable, Traceable, Reliable and Governable, developed through recommendations from 2019 by the Defense Innovation Board (DIB) and the interim report of the National Security Commission on AI (NSCAI).

As the DoD adapts emerging technologies to help deter or defeat peer threats in contested multi-domain environments, there has been an increased demand for secure autonomous communication networks to create human-machine teams that integrate greater precision, certainty, speed and mass to the battlefield.

Potomac Officers Club will host its Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Maneuver Virtual Event on Oct. 29. The event will discuss complex and congested terrain to mitigate current joint force capabilities and reduce effectiveness of DoD tactical maneuver elements.

To Register for the Artificial Intelligence for Maneuver Virtual Event, and view other upcoming opportunities, visit Potomac Officers Club’s Event Page!

In Sept. 2020, a Congressional panel analyzed defense priorities in the future, as the DoD embraces AI. The Future of Defense Task Force has developed the “Manhattan Project” to create levels of attention to AI. The project will require new major defense acquisition programs to be AI-ready and to evaluate at least one AI or autonomous alternative prior funding.

The report stated: “The incorporation of AI into the military and national security realms will fundamentally change the way wars are fought and won. Whichever nation triumphs in the AI race will hold a critical, and perhaps insurmountable, military and economic advantage.”

Michèle Flournoy, co-founder and managing partner of WestExec Advisors, will serve as a speaker during Potomac Officers Club’s Artificial Intelligence for Maneuver Virtual Event.

Flournoy recently co-authored a report, calling on the DoD to establish a more collaborative approach for testing and evaluation of AI. In order to meet the department’s AI goals, she said that DoD has to develop robust methods of testing, evaluation, validation and verification of AI that can increase the speed of the development pipeline.

“This is going to require much greater coordination across the entire [testing, evaluation, validation and verification] ecosystem,” Flournoy said. “You really can’t have a one-size-fits-all approach in this area.”

DoD will also focus on how the department can leverage machine learning (ML) to increase efficiency within AI. The Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC), a division of the DoD tasked with accelerating the adoption of AI across the branches of the military, has stated that AI will impact every mission carried out by the DoD.

In particular, adversarial machine learning (AML), an emerging AI practice that involves independent and state-sponsored actors manipulating machine learning algorithms to cause model malfunctions, could have massive consequences.

The DoD has investigated how the department can utilize AI and ML to improve and streamline military operations and other national security initiatives, and has allocated billions of dollars to expand AI system development.

AI technologies have already been incorporated into military operations in both Iraq and Syria, where computer vision algorithms are being used to detect people and objects of interest. The Air Force has also leveraged AI to keep track of when its planes are in need of maintenance, and the Army has used IBM’s AI software, Watson, for predictive maintenance and shipping analysis.

During Potomac Officers Club’s Artificial Intelligence for Maneuver Virtual Event, notable federal and industry leaders will address how the DoD can continue to expand and adapt AI technologies to gain a competitive advantage in the battlefield.

Featuring speaker Michèle Flournoy and an expert panel, moderated by Joel Dillon of Booz Allen Hamilton, the executives of consequence will discuss how to support robotic autonomous systems, miniaturized sensors, computing power and storage and secure autonomous communication networks precision and speed.

To Register for the Artificial Intelligence for Maneuver Virtual Event, and view other upcoming opportunities, visit Potomac Officers Club’s Event Page!