Risky Incrementalism: Defense AI in the United States

The United States remains the world’s preeminent military and technological power. Over the last decade, the United States has increasingly viewed artificial intelligence (AI) proficiency as a vital U.S. interest and mechanism for assuring U.S. military and economic power, recognizing its potential as a force multiplier. As a result, the United States is actively implementing AI across its defense and armed services, with notable applications in Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR), Cyber, Autonomous Systems, Command and Control, Disaster Relief, and Logistics. The United States government is generally well-placed to leverage defense AI and AI-enabled systems. However, various bureaucratic, organizational, and procedural hurdles have slowed down progress on defense AI adoption and technology-based innovation such that the Department of Defense has yet to successfully, on a broad scale, translate commercial AI developments into real military capabilities. The U.S. Department of Defense suffers from a complex acquisition process and a widespread shortfall of data, STEM, and AI talent and training. Organizations working on AI and AI-related technologies and projects are often siloed, separated not only from each other but also from necessary data and other resources, and there exists within the department a culture that favors tried-and-true methods and systems, sometimes trending towards Luddism. In the last few years, however, the Defense Department has made substantial headway on some of these challenges, restructuring its approach to defense AI. However, whether these new AI efforts will be sufficient to allow the U.S. to make up for time lost remains to be seen.