Defense Technology¶

January 8, 2024
in AI Strategy, Defense Technology, Innovation Management
6 min read

Autonomous Resupply Is a Logistics-System Redesign

When the U.S. Army and Defense Innovation Unit selected three vendors to develop autonomous navigation kits for Palletized Load System trucks, the obvious story was the vehicle: a heavy tactical truck capable of moving supplies with fewer people exposed to dangerous routes.

The more important story is the logistics system around it.

Autonomy does not remove humans from contested sustainment. It changes where they work, what information they need, how risk is distributed, and which failures become possible. An autonomous resupply vehicle creates value only when mission planning, loading, dispatch, route management, remote supervision, maintenance, cybersecurity, recovery, and receiving operations can treat it as a dependable participant in the distribution network.

January 7, 2024
in AI Strategy, Defense Technology, Innovation Management
6 min read

GIDE’s Real Value Is Learning at Operational Speed

The most important result of the Global Information Dominance Experiments (GIDE) is not a particular dashboard, algorithm, or data pipeline. It is the creation of a repeatable mechanism through which the Department of Defense can learn what an AI-enabled decision system must become while operators are using it.

That distinction matters. A technology demonstration asks whether a component can work under prepared conditions. An operational learning system asks a harder set of questions: Does the capability improve a consequential mission decision? Can it function across organizations and security boundaries? Do users understand when to trust it? Can the Department identify what failed, change the system, and test the change again before the operational context moves on?

December 14, 2023
in Cybersecurity, Defense Technology, Innovation Management
3 min read

A cyber challenge can build an ecosystem, not just a winner

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has opened registration for the Artificial Intelligence Cyber Challenge (AIxCC), published an exemplar challenge and scoring approach, and added prize funding. Competitors will work toward systems that can find and repair vulnerabilities in widely used software at scale.

Prizes attract teams. The lasting value of a challenge can be the common infrastructure and professional community built around the competition.

November 2, 2023
in Defense Technology, Innovation Management, AI Strategy
7 min read

Militarizing Innovation: The Path to Global Stability

In a recent dialogue with The Economist, Ukraine’s commander-in-chief, General Valery Zaluzhny, gave a stark assessment of their ongoing conflict with Russia – they lack the technological advantage to make strides and are at a stalemate with Russia. His reflections resonate with a long-standing consensus among military strategists and geopolitical analysts regarding the critical importance of technological advancement in warfare. The Russo-Ukrainian war, despite the employment of modern military technologies, demonstrates a broader imperative for the West: to win wars and mitigate risks, a nation must relentlessly pursue and attain technological dominance over its adversaries.

October 17, 2023
in Defense Technology, Digital Engineering, Organizational Learning
3 min read

Sim-to-real is an organizational-learning problem

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is seeking proposals for Transfer from Imprecise and Abstract Models to Autonomous Technologies (TIAMAT). The program challenges a common assumption: instead of building ever more detailed simulations, diverse lower-fidelity environments may help autonomous systems learn concepts that transfer more readily to unfamiliar real-world settings.

The technical hypothesis is provocative. The management lesson is familiar: a model becomes dangerous when an organization forgets which parts of reality it left out.

September 25, 2023
in Defense Technology, AI Assurance, Systems Engineering
3 min read

Trustworthy autonomy needs more than a better neural network

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has selected teams for its Assured Neuro Symbolic Learning and Reasoning (ANSR) program. The program will explore architectures that combine data-driven neural learning with symbolic representations and reasoning, with the aim of improving robustness and assurance for autonomous systems.

The research matters because high performance and trustworthy behavior are not the same achievement.

September 12, 2023
in Defense Technology, Human-Centered AI, Systems Engineering
3 min read

Disconnected autonomy requires better mission boundaries

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is seeking technology for its Rapid Experimental Missionized Autonomy (REMA) program. The objective is to add adaptable autonomy to commercial drones so they can continue a predefined mission when communication with the operator is lost.

Loss of connection is often described as a communications problem. For an autonomous system, it is also an authority problem: what may the machine continue to do when the person can no longer supervise it?

August 28, 2023
in Defense Technology, Innovation Management, Operating Models
3 min read

Replicator is an organizational test of speed and scale

The Department of Defense (DoD) has announced the Replicator initiative, an effort to field attritable autonomous systems in multiple domains at a scale of thousands within 18 to 24 months. The goal is intentionally aggressive. It is meant not only to deliver systems, but to demonstrate a repeatable way to move relevant technology into warfighters' hands faster.

Replicator will be discussed as an autonomy and manufacturing challenge. It is equally an organizational-design challenge.