Army plans for faster AI adoption, for defense too
Summary
She told Breaking Defense, “We have to protect ourselves from whatever our adversaries will bring to the table.” Under the Army’s ongoing #DefendAI initiative, the service is seeking support from companies and academia, including a July Request for Information (RFI) to better understand the industry’s capabilities and gather information and related to what it’s calling AI-LDF for AI and layered defense. The branch is also interested in risks associated with traditional adversarial methods, such as data poisoning and model stealing, in addition to emerging and future menaces with the potential for security disruption. Swanson stressed the goal is ensuring that the Army has “the big picture” and that the service is “not missing pieces or not asking industry to do things that aren’t achievable”. Another Army initiative that could benefit from the approach is Project Linchpin, in which the branch intends to integrate AI and machine learning (ML) into weapons and sensor modernization programs while protecting operational data. “There has certainly been a huge amount of progress in the commercial side for the past couple of years, but there are still a lot of things left to be done,” Swanson remarked.