Army Launches Two New Soldier Protection Strategies as Part of 500-Day AI Implementation Plan

The U.S. military this week announced steps it is taking to protect its soldiers, with the goal of strengthening its ability to effectively deploy artificial intelligence as part of a 500-day plan.

The U.S. Army’s Acquisition, Logistics and Technology (ALT) Office on Wednesday released two new initiatives, “Break AI” and “Counter AI,” that will test evolving AI technologies for reliability in the field and provide protection against hostile use of AI against the United States, Federal News Network reported this week.

The Army is not only considering how to safely implement AI across various military sectors, but also how to safely develop it in partnership with external entities.

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“One of the barriers to adoption is how do we look at the risks associated with AI? We have to look at the issues associated with poisoned data sets, adversary attacks, Trojans, things like that,” Young Bang, principal deputy assistant secretary of the Army ALT, reportedly said at a technology conference in Georgia on Wednesday.

“It’s easier to do if you develop it in a controlled, trusted environment that (the Defense Department) or the Army owns, and we’ll do all of that,” he added. “But this is really looking at how we can adopt third-party or commercial vendor algorithms directly into our programs so we don’t have to compete with them.”

“We want to adopt them.”

Bang’s announcement came after the army completed a 100-day sprint to test how to incorporate artificial intelligence into its purchasing process.

The goal was to explore ways the military could develop its own AI algorithms while also working with trusted outside entities to develop the technology in the most secure way possible, Federal News Network reported.

The Army is now using the knowledge gained during the 100-day sprint to test and secure AI deployment at all levels, develop systems for military use, and strengthen defenses against adversary use of AI.

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The Break AI initiative will focus on how AI can evolve into a field known as artificial general intelligence (AGI), the development of software that aims to match or exceed human cognitive abilities. It is a technology that has the potential to harness advanced decision-making and learning capabilities.

The technology, which has not yet been fully implemented, aims to improve on current AI software, which can only currently generate predictive outcomes based on the data provided.

But this next stage means not only developing but also protecting against this ambiguous technology, and that means the military will have a lot of work to do in this regard.

“It’s about the notion of how do we actually test and evaluate AI,” Bang said. “As we move toward AGI, how do we actually test something where we don’t know the outcome or what the behavior is going to be?

“You can’t test this the way we test deterministic models. We need industry help to do that.”

The second part of the Army’s 500-day plan is a bit more straightforward, explains Jennifer Swanson, deputy assistant secretary for the Army’s Office of Data, Engineering and Software.

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“We want to make sure that our platforms, our algorithms, our capabilities are secure from attacks and threats, but it’s also about how do we counteract what the adversary has,” she reportedly said. “We know we’re not the only ones investing in this. A lot of the investment is in countries that are big, hostile threats to the United States.”

Army officials did not provide many details about what specific actions the Army will take to develop AI capabilities because of the sensitive operational security nature of those initiatives.

But, Swanson said, “as we start learning and figuring out what we’re going to do, there will be things we’re going to share.”