160. The Trouble with Talent: Why We’re Struggling to Recruit and Retain Our Workforce

[Editor’s Note:  Mad Scientist Laboratory is pleased to publish today’s post by guest blogger Sarah L. Sladek, addressing how many industries and government organizations remain enmeshed within Twentieth Century hierarchical management constructs, despite the Nation having moved on to become a Talent Economy. Recent challenges in attracting cyber-talent is a weak signal to our Army regarding recruiting, developing, and retaining the right mix of talent necessary to achieve the Multi-Domain Operations (MDO)-Capable Force by 2028 and set the conditions for fielding an MDO-Ready Force in 2035. Read Ms. Sladek’s prescription for successfully generating, recruiting, and retaining our next generations of talent — Enjoy!]

The year was 2000. The startup that launched in 1998 had outgrown the garage, relocating to a nondescript building in an office park a couple of miles off the highway.

Outside that building, on an asphalt parking lot, employees played roller hockey. The games were full contact. Employees wore pads and would come back inside drenched in sweat and sometimes bloodied and bruised.

Inside the building, the game was twice as tough. Yes, there was free food for all employees and a massage therapist. The tough part was the company’s founder, who would often provoke arguments with the staff over business and product decisions. He pushed his employees to develop their visions of future technologies.

A few years after the idea of ranking web pages by their inbound links came to Larry Page in a dream, the founder of Google wrote down his five rules for management. He was in his twenties at the time. The list of rules included:

– Don’t get in the way if you’re not adding value;

– Ideas are more important than age; and

The worst thing you can do is say no. If you say no, you have to help find a better way to get it done.

Somewhere at the tail end of the 20th century—perhaps right in that asphalt parking lot where the first Google employees played roller hockey—a radical change occurred and the Talent Economy emerged. Unlike other eras that have come before, this one is almost entirely powered by innovation and ideas.

Prior to this shift work was just a job, leadership was the equivalent of power, and the prioritization of talent didn’t really exist. Consider this timeline:

1910:  Natural resources were a company’s most valuable assets. America’s leading companies grew large by spending increasing amounts of capital to acquire and exploit oil, mineral deposits, forests, water, and land.

1946:  Post-World War II, companies took a lesson from the military and applied systems to everything for increased efficiency, predictability, and productivity. This move resulted in a command-and-control leadership style Baby Boomers (1946-1964) were raised knowing.

1955:  An insatiable appetite for American-made cars spurred the manufacturing industry. Companies needed labor, but mainly for routine-intensive jobs. When turnover occurred, those jobs were easy to fill, and individual workers had little bargaining power.

1963:  A relatively new breed of corporation made the list of largest companies: IBM. This company was wasn’t reliant on automation or natural resources. Rather, scientists, engineers, marketers, and salespeople were at the heart of IBM’s competitive advantage.

1965:  Business growth dominated the economy and more jobs began to require creativity, as well as independent judgment and decision-making skills. The concept of talent (utilizing skills, knowledge, and ideas) began to emerge.

1998:  Google was founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, ages 25 and 24 respectively, ushering in an era of rule-breaking and innovation among people who would have once been regarded as too young to lead or influence.

2016:  Topping the largest companies list were Apple, Microsoft, and Google, all talent-dependent companies. People under the age of 35 were starting more companies, managing bigger staffs, and realizing higher profits than any of their predecessors.

Clearly, change has happened. We’ve moved into a Talent Economy and the focus is on human capital. The irony is while most organizations are now prioritizing the recruitment and retention of talent, few have actually been successful at it. In fact, employee turnover has become a major concern. Gallup reports that young professional turnover alone costs U.S. companies an estimated $30.5 billion per year.

Why? Because there’s a gap in our workforce.

In the past, organizations were built for scalable efficiency. Jobs were well-defined and organized to support processes and forecasts. Workers were trained to protect information and any collaboration with those outside of the organization was highly monitored or even discouraged.

Now we’ve moved into the 21st century—the Talent Economy—and the generations born into this era have little to no memory of the last century’s methodologies. They struggle to comprehend why decisions can’t be made on the fly, why they can’t have a seat at the decision-making table, and why it’s always been done ‘that way.’ They’ve been raised in an era fueled by collaboration, globalization, mobility, flexibility, transparency, and creativity. Anything else seems foreign and irrelevant to them.

Hence, we have a problem: an ever-widening gap between the 20th century-managed organizations, and the 21st century-raised workforce. This gap has widespread effects, including employee turnover, disengagement, and challenges finding talent. This means that every organization – including the military – needs to seriously reconsider how to find and keep talent.

Industrial versus Cyber Age Workspaces:  Rigid mid-Twentieth Century office pool contrasted with collaborative Twenty-first Century workspace / Source: Google Dublin’s interior

This situation is likely to get worse before it gets better largely because Baby Boomer retirements are escalating. Take the Army for instance. In 2018, the Army started out its fiscal year with an ambitious task: To bring in 80,000 new active duty soldiers. The military branch fell short of its goal partly due to a large number of senior personnel retirements. The Army Times reported that retention had “stopped the bleeding of missed recruiting goals,” but the balance isn’t sustainable in the long-term because the Army “could end up with more leaders than soldiers to lead.”

Turnover, decline, and uncertainty about the future doesn’t have to be the reality for any organization. I’ve spent several years researching generational behaviors and the employee engagement practices common among the most successful organizations in existence today. In brief, here are six of my key findings, which I also outline in my latest book, Talent Generation (2018).

 

If you want to engage the next generation of talent, this is exactly what you must do:

Put Ego Aside
In the 20th century, leadership was often the equivalent of power, fueled by a top down, ‘do-it-because-I-said-so’ approach to management. Today, the organizations boasting the highest employee engagement are led by leaders who exhibit a strong sense of passion, humility, and urgency. They are willing to learn from others and take risks. Unlike their 20th-century predecessors, these leaders are visionary, collaborative, and swift, never losing sight of their organization’s core purpose or wavering in their desire for change.

Practice Acceptance
The organizations boasting high employee engagement are those that spend a considerable amount of time thinking about change and preparing for it. They also spend a considerable amount of time thinking about how to hire the best and build the best teams. The fact is, employee engagement is an impossible feat in the midst of distrust, stereotypes, and hierarchies. Today’s most successful organizations are accepting of new ideas and new people and intentional about building relationships.

Put People First
Being truly talent-focused means prioritizing your people above all else. In a talent-focused organization, the entire team is empowered and encouraged, always part of the discussion, and there’s an effort to incorporate young talent into everything.

Stay Future Focused!
It’s imperative that all organizations ask: How do we rebuild around what we need to be next, rather than what we used to be? Organizations boasting high employee engagement are focused on creating the future, not responding to it. They pay attention to trends, set aside time to contemplate their futures, and dialogue often with younger generations.

Collaborate
Innovation naturally happens through and exists within collaboration. And the best organizations harness innovation from their employees and outsiders—especially those from younger generations. True collaboration isn’t limited to doing one project every once in a while; it’s a sustained strategy which maximizes individual contribution while leveraging the collective intelligence of everyone involved.

Build a Better Future
We have moved rapidly into a global, technologically advanced, knowledge-based economy. Presently, our schools are preparing students for a world we can’t even imagine, and they’re struggling to adapt and make the school-to-work connection. Many of today’s leading organizations have aligned with student-focused initiatives, and it’s critical that representatives of military, business, and industry find a way to get involved in school programming, outreach, partnering, and education. New research indicates that students hone in on a career path as early as sixth grade, so the connection must start before a student’s junior or senior year in high school.

As we move from the computer age into the cyber-age, the workforce crisis will become even more apparent as new industries, jobs, and skills emerge. The real issue is no longer talent management; it’s talent generation. It’s imperative that organizations engage younger generations of talent, and help train and prepare future talent.

Talent is our nation’s greatest asset. Talent is the heart and soul of every organization, and developing that talent has become more urgent and important than ever.

We cannot become a nation that relies on others to manufacture, create, and innovate. We cannot sit back and wait for someone else to solve this problem. If we do, we continue to fail.

We cannot be apathetic towards our future, thinking it will be someone else’s problem to solve. If we do, we continue to fail.

Without talent, we have much to lose. Without talent, we have no purpose, no future, and no hope. Without talent, society fails. So let’s put an end to the workforce crisis and seek to innovate, embrace change, and move our organizations into this next century. Let’s make work work again.

In the post above, Ms. Sladek shared her insights for successfully generating, recruiting, and retaining human capital, the sine quo non of innovation.  Mad Scientist wants to hear your thoughts on The Operational Environment: What Will Change and What Will Drive It – Today to 2035?  Learn more about our current crowdsourcing exercise here and be sure to get your submissions in NLT 1700 EDT Next Monday — 15 July 2019!

If you enjoyed this post, please also see:

TRADOC 2028

Old Human vs. New Human

BrAIn Gain > BrAIn Drain: Strategic Competition for Intellect

Setting the Army (Part III)

Sarah L. Sladek is the founder and CEO of XYZ University, LLC, a future-focused management consulting firm. In addition, she is the author of five books and several research papers on generations, membership and employee engagement, and the future of work. Her latest book is Talent Generation: How Visionary Organizations Are Redefining Work and Achieving Greater Success. Twitter: @SarahSladek. Web: www.xyzuniversity.com

159. Climate Change Laid Bare: Why We Need To Act Now

[Editor’s Note: Mad Scientist Laboratory is pleased to publish this morning’s piece by guest blogger Ms. Sage Miller, addressing the geopolitical implications of climate change, specifically its role as a catalyst for instability.  Read on to learn why this matters to the U.S. Army!]

Science dictates that climate change is happening.1 The atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, a naturally occurring greenhouse gas, is rising at an alarming rate, allowing less heat to escape into space. The average surface temperature of the Earth is rising, causing glaciers to melt and global sea levels to rise. These changes to water resources, food supply, and regional weather patterns all hold implications for human security and geopolitics.2

Climate change is most often discussed in terms of its ecological and environmental impacts; rarely is it touched upon as a direct national security threat. The DoD has formally recognized the severity of climate change with references to it as a “threat multiplier.”3 However, climate change not only intensifies other threats, but creates threats in its own right. To ignore environmental factors in tracing the causes of conflicts and other global events would be missing a key piece of the puzzle.

Climate change will have several significant strategic impacts affecting the Army, the DoD, and the future geopolitical landscape.

1. Expanding zones of competition. The melting of the polar ice caps is opening up the Arctic as a new ocean – and thus, a new sphere of competition. Easier access to these waters increases tourism, shipping, resource exploration and extraction, and military activities.4 The wealth of Arctic natural resources promises significant economic gains, as does the potential access to new shipping lanes. Most importantly, the opening of the Arctic connects two important potential theaters of engagement, the Indo-Pacific and Europe, to the homeland.5

The 2019 DoD Arctic Strategy explicitly expresses our desire to maintain supremacy in the region and counter Russian and Chinese incursions.6 With multiple Arctic nations remaining proactive when it comes to climate change, American inaction will only grant these states the opportunity to insert themselves and gain a foothold, enabling them to climb to regional hegemony. Neglecting this national security issue plays into the hands of our competitors, setting a dangerous precedent.

2. The health of our troops is far from guaranteed. A number of infectious diseases, such as malaria, West Nile virus, cholera, and Lyme disease, are expected to worsen as climate change continues to raise global temperatures and cause more extreme weather.7 Higher temperatures and precipitation will increase the life expectancy and range for vectors such as mosquitos, ticks, and rodents.8 Poor global health infrastructure will only amplify the spread of these and other diseases, as increasing global connectivity and changing environmental conditions change the geographic distribution of pathogens and their hosts.9 With a significant number of U.S. troops stationed abroad, the spread of vector-borne diseases is only going to grow more likely.

Melting permafrost in the Arctic is releasing diseases that we have not encountered in hundreds or even thousands of years.10 Permafrost acts as an excellent preserver of bacteria and viruses due to the lack of oxygen and light, and global warming is slowly exposing older layers of permafrost.11 With climate change accelerating these changing disease vectors, the very security and health of our troops is threatened. In 2016, thawing permafrost in northern Siberia melted to reveal a reindeer carcass that had been infected with anthrax, leading to dozens of hospitalizations and the death of a 12-year-old boy, as well as over 2,300 reindeer.12 The warming climate, facilitating the release of old diseases and expanding the ranges of disease vectors, portends a deadly future.

3. Installations worldwide are increasingly endangered.  Melting of the polar ice caps is causing the sea to rise at an alarming rate. These climate-driven changes are causing major harm to U.S. military bases both at home and abroad.13 In 2018 alone, extreme weather events damaged one Marine Corps base and two Air Force bases, and necessitated over $8 billion in repairs.14 Coastal installations are most at risk from flooding, storms, and other shifts in weather patterns. At Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Norfolk, Virginia, sea level rise has caused nine major floods in the last 10 years.15 An analysis conducted by a team of experts from the Union of Concerned Scientists found that eight bases may lose a quarter to half of their land by the end of the century, and that “Four installations – Naval Air Station Key West, Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Dam Neck Annex, and Parris Island – are at risk of losing between 75 and 95 percent of their land.”16 Damaged installations may compromise material and logistic support, and training could be sacrificed in favor of rebuilding.17

In the Indian Ocean, Diego Garcia is home to a joint U.K.-U.S. military base that provides support for “a range of critical war-fighting operations in the region, including as a staging area for special operations forces, submarine support for those special operations, and long-range bomber flights into Afghanistan.”18 Unfortunately, Diego Garcia is a “low-lying atoll whose natural barriers to accelerating sea level rise and storm surge (coral reefs) are being significantly degraded by climate change.”19

Installations at risk from climate change-induced threats such as sea-level rise and coastal erosion will impact all aspects of U.S. military strategy. Potential risks range from loss of mission capabilities to increased potential for loss of life.20  The Army’s ability to project forces globally will be challenged as these installations are further degraded due to climate change.

4. Climate change impacts will lead to mass migration. A report by the World Bank found that climate change increases migration through various existing drivers, such as “depressing rural wages, raising agricultural prices, shaping exposure to hazards, and stressing ecosystems.”21 Warming, drought, rising sea levels, natural disasters, and resource scarcity are all drivers of migration caused by climate change. This trend, in combination with steep population growth in many regions, points towards a rising number of climate refugees.

The World Bank’s report focuses on three regions: Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Latin America. The report projects that by 2050, more than 143 million people across these regions could be forced to move within their own countries to escape the impacts of climate change.22 This massive amount of migration will only further compound resource scarcity and aggravate the potential for civil unrest.

Most importantly, rural to urban migration will only continue to increase as population growth and resource scarcity compel more and more people to seek a better life in cities.23 Urbanization itself has significant military implications. Large masses of disillusioned, economically disadvantaged people vulnerable to disease and unrest will gather in dense urban areas. As more and more people migrate to urban areas, the likelihood that the Army will conduct operations in a dense urban environment increases.

5. Regional instability will only grow. Climate change is inherently global; as such, different regions will be impacted differently. For instance, while the Arctic is melting rapidly, causing sea-level rise and heavy storms in the Asia-Pacific, the Middle East is experiencing extreme drought and desertification.24

As these events increase in intensity and commonality, they could cause mass panic and upheaval. Climate change is already sparking events around the world that lead to violence and conflict, such as:

a. The Arab Spring. With an event as complex as the Arab Spring, drawing precise causal arrows is virtually impossible. However, vulnerability of the Middle East and North Africa region to various climate-impacted phenomena show that security is directly linked to stability. The failure of governments to meet the basic needs of citizens by responding to climatic issues such as drought, desertification, and food shortages is what drove many to take part in the series of political uprisings.25 With climate change increasingly impacting human security, events such as the Arab Spring will only continue to follow.

b. The Syrian civil war. Air Force Chief of Staff General David Goldfein told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the brutal civil war raging in Syria is a prime example of the kind of climate change-induced conflicts that the U.S. may have to respond to militarily. A ten-year drought in the region led Syrians to flock to cities unable to adequately meet the demand for resources, leading the Syrians to revolt due to the government’s inability to support them.26

c. Boko Haram. Climate change has been found to be linked to political violence in Nigeria. Poor responses to climate change have increased risks of conflict, such as low economic opportunity and negative relations between the government and its citizens.27 Reports show that chronic drought around Lake Chad, whose water levels have fallen by 95% since the 1960s, has helped Boko Haram maintain its stronghold on the region due to the erosion of trust in the government and the subsequent ease of recruiting extremist soldiers.28

These are only a few of the geopolitical implications that climate change brings. New and existing threats will only grow more pressing and more relevant to the Army. Climate change has and will continue to act as an accelerant for instability, which will threaten not only developing nations, but developed liberal democracies as well. As climate change worsens, the military will soon be most challenged by an enemy it cannot truly fight.

If you enjoyed this post, please read:

Future Threats: Climate Change and Islamic Terror, by Mr. Matthew Ader

Emergent Global Trends Impacting on the Future Operational Environment

Our Arctic—The World’s Pink Flamingo and Black Swan Bird Sanctuary, by Mr. Frank Prautzsch

Ms. Sage Miller is a rising junior participating in the Joint Degree Programme with the College of William & Mary in Virginia and the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, studying International Relations. She is currently interning at Headquarters, US Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) with the Mad Scientist Initiative.


1 “Climate Change: How Do We Know?” NASA, 20 June 2019, https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/.

2 “Climate Change Impacts,” National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce, Feb. 2019, www.noaa.gov/education/resource-collections/climate-education-resources/climate-change-impacts.

3 “National Security Implications of Climate-Related Risks and A Changing Climate,” Department of Defense, 23 July 2015, p. 8.

4 Ibid, p. 3.

5 “The Arctic Institute’s Reaction to the 2019 Department of Defense (DoD) Arctic Strategy,” The Arctic Institute, 7 June 2019, https://www.thearcticinstitute.org/the-arctic-institute-reaction-2019-department-defense-dod-arctic-strategy/.

6 “Report to Congress: Department of Defense Arctic Strategy,” Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Department of Defense, June 2019.

7 Renee Cho, “How Climate Change Is Exacerbating the Spread of Disease,” State of the Planet, Earth Institute, Columbia University, 4 September 2014, https://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2014/09/04/how-climate-change-is-exacerbating-the-spread-of-disease/.

8 Ibid.

9 “Trends Transforming the Global Landscape,” Global Trends, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, https://www.dni.gov/index.php/global-trends/trends-transforming-the-global-landscape.

10 Stephanie Pappas, “5 Deadly Diseases Emerging from Global Warming,” LiveScience, 3 August 2016, https://www.livescience.com/55632-deadly-diseases-emerge-from-global-warming.html.

11 Jasmin Fox-Skelly, “There are diseases hidden in the ice, and they are waking up,” BBC Earth, BBC, 4 May 2017, http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20170504-there-are-diseases-hidden-in-ice-and-they-are-waking-up.

12 Ibid.

13 Caitlin Werrell, et al. “A ‘Responsibility to Prepare’: A Strategy for Presidential Leadership on the Security Risks of Climate Change,” War on the Rocks, 14 June 2019, https://warontherocks.com/2019/06/a-responsibility-to-prepare-a-strategy-for-presidential-leadership-on-the-security-risks-of-climate-change/.

14 Ibid.

15 Nicholas Kusnetz, “Rising seas threaten Norfolk Naval Shipyard, raising fears of ‘catastrophic damage’,” InsideClimate News, NBC, 19 November 2018, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/rising-seas-threaten-norfolk-naval-shipyard-raising-fears-catastrophic-damage-n937396.

16 Erika Spanger-Siegfried, et al., “The US Military on the Front Lines of Rising Seas,” Union of Concerned Scientists, August 2016, https://www.ucsusa.org/global-warming/science-and-impacts/impacts/sea-level-rise-flooding-us-military-bases.

17 Nicole Gauette, et al., “Hearing on climate change and national security becomes an angry partisan clash,” CNN, 9 April 2019, https://edition.cnn.com/2019/04/09/politics/house-climate-natsec-hearing/index.html.

18 Gen. Ronald Keys, et al., “Military Expert Panel Report: Sea Level Rise and the U.S. Military’s Mission,” The Center for Climate and Security, September 2016, p. 21.

19 Ibid.

20 Ibid, p. 6.

21Kanta Kumari Rigaud, et al., “Groundswell: Preparing for Internal Climate Migration,” World Bank, 19 March 2018, p. 23

22 Ibid.

23“Cities on the Frontline,” Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, Accessed: 25 June 2019, https://ciff.org/impact/cities-frontline/.

24 “The National Security Implications of Climate Change,” Environmental and Energy Study Institute, 5 June 2017, https://www.eesi.org/briefings/view/060517security.

25 Werrell, Caitlin E., and Francesco Femia, eds. The Arab Spring and climate change: a climate and security correlations series. Center for American Progress, 2013, p. 3, https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/security/reports/2013/02/28/54579/the-arab-spring-and-climate-change/.

26 Nicole Gauette, et al., “Hearing on climate change and national security becomes an angry partisan clash,” CNN, 9 April 2019, https://www.edition.cnn.com/2019/04/09/politics/house-climate-natsec-hearing/index.html.

27 Tom Sarsfield, “How Climate Change Affects African Security,” War Room, United States Army War College, 13 June 2019, https://warroom.armywarcollege.edu/articles/climate-change-african-security/.

28 Megan Darby. “Boko Haram Terrorists Thriving on Climate Crisis: Report,” Climate Home News, Climate Home, 19 April 2017, www.climatechangenews.com/2017/04/20/boko-haram-terrorists-thriving-climate-crisis-report/.

 

158. In the Cognitive War – The Weapon is You!

[Editor’s Note:  Mad Scientist Laboratory is pleased to publish today’s post by guest blogger Dr. Zac Rogers, addressing the on-going cognitive war (i.e., what COL Steve Banach describes in as Virtual War — see his blog posts Parts I & II]). In the race to achieve a cognitive edge, Dr. Rogers cautions the West about hidden assumptions that may prove to be cognitive vulnerabilities — Enjoy!]

A growing portion of the national security, intelligence, and defense (NSID) communities in the US, UK, Europe, Australia, and elsewhere are exploring the concept of cognitive war. The idea is basically that irregular and unconventional methods and means, which increasingly include non-kinetic and non-lethal delivery and effects leveraging digital connectivity, have shifted the center of gravity of political conflict from a violent clash of arms on the conventional battlefield to a narrative contest among the population. In the process, traditional concepts within the art and science of violent political conflict associated with boundaries, thresholds, levels, and phases are all deeply disrupted.

While many in the NSID community are willing to accept we are fighting a cognitive war, few are willing to recognize the extent to which it is being lost. Losing the cognitive war raises another fashionable topic emerging lately – strategic surprise. This is not the fight we thought we would get; it is not the fight we’ve invested in; nor is it the fight we wanted. But it is the fight we’ve got. The radical shifts in how society is organized and how warfare is conducted have exposed the NSID community to strategic surprise.

Losing without fighting

Cognitive warfare is not only an attack on what we think. It is an attack on our way of thinking. Not only about the conduct of warfare but about whole-of-nation security and prosperity. And one of its unique properties is the extent to which we do it to ourselves. We participate. The adversary, in the age of hyper-connectivity, need only show up, inject, nudge, exploit, and disappear. The concept of ‘below the threshold’ conflict becomes meaningless when we prove ourselves capable of losing without fighting. The threshold of what?

The target of this type of warfare is obvious enough. It is the fabric of trust which underpins and enables the most basic functionality of open society. Trust that extends beyond heredity and beyond the purely transactional is the fabric that supports every aspect of the nation’s strategic strength. Instead of investing in the true strengths of open society after the Cold War, we have left it to atrophy in the hubristic belief that the open way of life was universalizing.

Gamers will get gamed

Auguste Comte:  Father of Positivism and inventor of the term sociology

Easy to overlook often goes hand-in-hand with difficult to measure. Scientists really hate talking about this, but part of the reason for that overlooking is the resurgence of Positivism. Without always understanding it, and often without stating it, the majority of research and development in defence science and technology inherits both its epistemology and its methodology from Positivism. And R&D into the cluster of technologies associated with AI proceeds under many of the assumptions of Behaviourism.

 

These are currents in the historical drift of European thought – not arrows to truth. They are ‘ways of thinking’. The unresolved controversies in these Occidental thought trajectories are many. The discomfort, if not outright dismissal, of the assumptions they accommodate by the scientific community amount to cognitive vulnerabilities. The heavy reliance on these communities by the NSID community means people in the latter should, at a minimum, be aware of the assumptions which so often go unstated by people in the former.

When Occidentalism and Positivism combine in the race for the next false dawn in technological supremacy, blind spots are produced. Believers in an ‘AI race’ should be wary. We in the West see this as an S&T contest, while largely ignoring its socio-political implications. For the Chinese, AI is politics, politics, politics. Is there something about non-Occidental cultural orientations that makes AI applicable to human affairs in ways not amenable to us? It’s an important strategic question. Positivism, by masking the salience of cultural orientation, is an exploitable weakness of our epistemic communities in need of addressing.

Proceed with caution

When ‘behavioural scientists’ get excited about manipulating people, either for benign or malign ends, what is the effect on the fabric of trust open society depends on? Military organizations now scrambling to incorporate ‘the cognitive’ into their operational concepts face a steep curve and many roadblocks. Friction is not always a bad thing. Hubristic behavioural interventions into complex anthropological systems involving AI should be approached with great caution. Hidden assumptions are cognitive vulnerabilities, and what appears to be a branch of S&T competition could turn out to be a strategic cul de sac we might want to back out of later.

It’s one thing to know thy enemy. In the cognitive war, it’s more important than ever to know thyself.

If you enjoyed this post, please also see:

An Appropriate Level of Trust…

Man-Machine Rules, by Dr. Nir Buras

The Death of Authenticity: New Era Information Warfare

Dr. Zac Rogers PhD is Research Lead at the Jeff Bleich Centre for the US Alliance in Digital Technology, Security, and Governance at Flinders University of South Australia. Research interests combining national security, intelligence, and defence with social cybersecurity, digital anthropology, and democratic resilience.