Bonci, Carbone and other AI experts spoke on a panel moderated by Shivaji Sengupta, founder and CEO of NXTKey Corporation, at the AFCEA Alamo ACE conference on November 15 in San Antonio.

The Forcepoint executive, who also is a professor of AI and data science at Baylor University, advised that successful use of AI will warrant a greater understanding of the underlying system. “We need to understand our systems much better than we do,” Carbone stated. “If we knew all of those dependencies as you build systems, the systems could actually heal themselves. And what we’re doing is not really understanding many of the systems and those dependencies. We’re now trying to flip artificial intelligence algorithms, which are getting more and more complex every day in that same box without understanding of dependencies. Now, that’s a big problem.”

For Bill Streilein, the CTO within the CDAO, it is about adroitly examining AI technologies. “Our strategy is really to adopt experimentation within the Department,” he said. “The idea is that technology is evolving so quickly, and innovations are coming. Within weeks, for instance, large language models show up with new capabilities. We need the ability to experiment with those in a relevant operational context so we can understand how they can affect operations.”

Streilein advised leaders look at applying military AI at all echelons—not only at the decision level—but across the whole life cycle. AI is commonly seen as a decision-making aid, but it can be used for many more applications than that. In addition, the CDAO is working to articulate a hierarchy of needs for AI so that department leaders understand at a foundational level what is necessary for its adoption.