Special Operations Forces Require Greater Proficiency in Artificial Intelligence

Abstraction: Military special operations forces need deeper AI technical literacy

Key points:

• DoD 2020 AI Education Strategy defines 6 workforce archetypes: Lead, Drive, Create, Embed, Facilitate, and Employ AI; warfighters currently treated only as "Employ AI" end-users
• Special operations forces need skills of the Embed and Facilitate archetypes — troubleshoot ML models, assess data quality, communicate requirements to developers at the tactical edge
• AI cannot be evaluated by output appearance alone; model drift, adversarial data poisoning, and stale data cause imperceptible but consequential failures
• Each special operations team should have at least one member formalized as an AI bridge between technical experts and operators, via additional skill identifier or certification
• True/false positives, confidence intervals, and error metrics must be familiar concepts for operators evaluating AI tools
• AI talent shortages mean tactical teams will not be staffed with dedicated AI experts; existing operators must fill the gap

Connections: Us Department Of Defense · Us Special Operations Command · AI Literacy · Human Machine Teaming · Explainable AI

Source: https://warontherocks.com/2023/02/special-operations-forces-require-greater-proficiency-in-artificial-intelligence/