462. Unmanned Capabilities in Today’s Battlespace

[Editor’s Note:  As proclaimed Mad Scientist COL Scott Shaw, former Commander, U.S. Army Asymmetric Warfare Group, observed previously on this blog site, “The use of UAS for reconnaissance and targeting will increase. As these systems proliferate, they will lower the ‘entry fee’ into combined arms operations, granting even non-state actors a localized air force and creating a general environment of fear.” Since that conversation, Russia launched its “Special Military Operation,” embroiling Ukraine in an enduring Large Scale Combat Operation where UAS have played an outsized role.

In our on-going quest to understand the Operational Environment, Army Mad Scientist is pleased to publish the first in a series of posts exploring the Twenty-first century’s battlespace, how our pacing threat China is responding to it, and what the U.S. Army can do to prepare our Warfighters to fight and win decisively in it — Read on!]

This decade has seen an increase in the production, employment, and success of Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) on the battlefield. These systems were integral components of the Azeri victory in the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War – specifically the Turkish Bayraktar TB2 and Israeli Harop – and are proving vital in the on-going Russo-Ukrainian war.  UAS are being used as:

      • Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) systems, providing real-time forward observation, fires direction and adjustment, and cueing of strike systems (like the Russian Orlon-10, shown to the right);
      • Loitering Munitions (LMs), programmed to surveil an area and strike prioritized target sets (like the Israeli Harop, shown to the right);
      • Top attack systems, enabling infantry to engage dismounted, defiladed troops, armored systems, and other targets with dropped munitions (like the Ukrainian quadcopter configured to drop mortar rounds, shown to the right);
      • First Person View (FPV) strike systems, enabling hunter-killer teams to destroy targets by delivering munitions via virtual kamikaze strike missions (like the Russian FPV UAS armed with a shaped charge grenade, shown to the right);
      • One-Way Attack (OWA) systems, providing accurate, long range strikes at a fraction of the cost of a cruise missile (like the Russian Shahed-136 launcher, shown to the right); and
      • Stand-off strike platforms, remotely piloted aircraft delivering long range precision munitions (like the Russian Orion UAS, shown to the right).

Mission sets could include resupply and logistics, maintenance and sustainment, and personal security among others. As additional applications emerge, the U.S. can expect to encounter adversaries that employ UAS to target our military assets across the depth of the battlefield.

UAS’s low acquisition cost and the democratization of the technology required to build them means smaller and less affluent nations and non-state actors will be able to build facsimile air forces to compete with nations with larger defense budgets and robust manned air forces. China, for example, has become a global leader in the export of combat UASs. These drones have been found in conflicts in Asia, Ukraine, Africa, and the Middle East, and at least 17 different countries use combat UASs developed in China.

In addition to Air Domain operations, unmanned systems have carried out strikes in the Land and Sea Domains in Ukraine.  Russia has employed its surfeit of obsolescent armored fighting vehicles to execute unmanned demolition missions against fortified Ukrainian positions, with mixed success.  Ukraine has employed Unmanned Surface Vessels (USVs) to carry out strikes against the Kerch Straits Bridge — a vital main supply route linking the Russian mainland with occupied Crimea — and against Russian Black Sea Fleet vessels.  Ukraine has also employed USVs in conjunction with UAS to carry out complex strikes against vital Russian naval infrastructure in Sevastopol, Crimea.

In its drive to modernize the PLA, China is focused on harnessing the power of Artificial Intelligence with autonomous systems to integrate unmanned air, ground, surface, and underwater craft under multiple configurations, raising the specter of multi-domain autonomous swarms of systems, capable of attacking from multiple vectors, creating multiple dilemmas to saturate and overwhelm defenses and countermeasures.  China is also funding research in manned-unmanned teaming (MUM-T) which could also provide significant battlefield gains as neither a human nor machine acting on its is as effective as both working in tandem.

The air superiority enjoyed by the U.S. in past conflicts may not exist in tomorrow’s Operational Environment and robust counter-UAS (C-UAS) will be vital in ensuring success on future battlefields. The proliferation of small, man-portable UAS requires our Soldiers to be proficient in counter-UAS tactics. Programs of instruction and rigorous training will prepare our Soldiers for the pervasiveness of UAS that are hard to detect, always observing, and ready to strike. Counter-UAS training should include:

      • Awareness of our adversaries’ ability to surveil our forces in any spectrum, including visible, infrared, and radio frequencies;
      • Hardening the force against UAS (to include command posts, logistics nodes, main supply routes, air and sea ports of debarkation, and staging areas); and
      • Individual and unit proficiency in C-UAS across all echelons down to the squad level.  Soldiers must be as familiar with C-UAS as they are their own weapons — the proliferation of UAS means C-UAS proficiency is a Basic Soldier Skill.

If you enjoyed this post, check out the following related TRADOC G-2 and Army Mad Scientist content:

China Landing Zone content on the TRADOC G-2‘s Operational Environment Enterprise public facing page — including the BiteSize China weekly topics, ATP 7-100.3, Chinese Tactics, People’s Liberation Army Ground Forces Quick Reference Guide, and more!

How China Fights and its associated podcast, with seven world-class SMEs on our Pacing Threat

The PLA and UAVs – Automating the Battlefield and Enhancing Training

A Chinese Perspective on Future Urban Unmanned Operations

China: “New Concepts” in Unmanned Combat and Cyber and Electronic Warfare

The PLA: Close Combat in the Information Age and the “Blade of Victory”

Insights from the Robotics and Autonomy Series of Virtual Events, as well as all of the associated webinar content (presenter biographies, slide decks, and notes) and associated videos

Insights from Ukraine on the Operational Environment and the Changing Character of Warfare

Turkey and the TB-2: A Rising Drone Superpower and its associated podcast, with Karen Kaya

The Dawn of the Loitering Munitions Era, by proclaimed Mad Scientist SGM Daniel S. Nasereddine

Top Attack: Lessons Learned from the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War and its associated podcast, as well as Sooner Than We Think: Command Post Survivability and Future Threats and its associated podcast, both with COL John Antal (USA-Ret.)

Insights from the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict in 2020 (Part I and II)

“Once More unto The Breach Dear Friends”: From English Longbows to Azerbaijani Drones, Army Modernization STILL Means More than Materiel, by Ian Sullivan.

Through Soldiers’ Eyes: The Future of Ground Combat and its associated podcast

The Future of Ground Warfare and its associated podcast, with proclaimed Mad Scientist COL Scott Shaw

Character of Warfare 2035

Ground Warfare in 2050: How It Might Look, The Intelligent Battlefield of the Future, and its associated podcast with proclaimed Mad Scientist Dr. Alexander Kott

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this blog post do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Department of Defense, Department of the Army, Army Futures Command (AFC), or Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC).

461. Gen Z is Likely to Build Trusting Relationships with AI

[Editor’s Note:  The Army’s Mad Scientist Laboratory is pleased to feature another post by the United States Army War College (USAWC) Team Future Nerds, excerpted from their final report entitled The Rise of the Digital Native:  How the Next Generation of Analysts and Technology are Changing the Intelligence Landscape.  This report was a group research project for Team Future Nerds Master of Strategic Studies degree. This research project occurred for approximately four months, from January 2023 through April 2023, and answered the following questions posed by LTG Laura A. Potter, Deputy Chief of Staff G2, Headquarters, Department of the Army:

How do 18-22-year-old intelligence analysts likely consume, synthesize, and communicate information today?

How is information consumption likely to evolve in ways that will change end-user information consumption habits between now and 2040?

Today’s post excerpts COL Derek Baird‘s piece examining the issue of trust and Artificial Intelligence (AI) from a generational perspective.  Tomorrow’s Army recruits will be digital natives, accustomed to using AI to augment and supplement decision-making in their everyday lives.  But as we’ve seen with previous revolutions in  information technology, our adversaries could exploit and weaponize this AI dependency as an additional attack surface, creating new threat vectors via patching and data poisoning to exploit inherent biases and malignly influence AI users.  We need to build resiliency into our AI-enabled systems to ensure trust worthiness or risk becoming increasingly vulnerable to manipulation by nefarious state and non-state actors — Read on!]

Executive Summary

Generation Z is likely (55-70%) to trust AI more than past generations, leading to increasing use of artificial intelligence. Trustworthiness is a key element of sustained use of AI today and the future. Gen Z trust is due to their digital native status, accessing information anytime, anywhere, and their ability to integrate emerging technology into their daily lives. Despite several unique challenges to trustworthy AI, such as transparency, reliability, security and privacy, Generation Z is likely to continue to integrate AI into their daily lives.

Discussion

Generation Z is known for being digital natives who have grown up in a world where technology is integrated into every aspect of their lives. They are more apt to trust AI than previous generations.  In March 2021, the University of Queensland in Australia conducted a five-country study on trustworthy AI. The study concluded that Gen Z trust AI 10% more than the Baby Boomer generation (34% vs 24%). More recent surveys also suggest that over 70% of Gen Z believe AI will have a positive impact on the world.

A notable example of trusted AI are virtual assistants. Anthropomorphism, attributing human characteristics to objects such as virtual assistants, increases trust resilience.  Virtual assistants are becoming more ubiquitous in society. Gartner, an organization that uses experts and tools to guide organizations to make smarter decisions and stronger performance on an organization’s mission-critical priorities, predicts that by 2025, 50% of knowledge workers will use a virtual assistant on a daily basis, up from 2% in 2019.

Generation Z, as digital natives, embrace technology and trust that it is going to have a positive effect on their livelihood.  Gen Z have experienced information ubiquity for their entire lives — accessing it anytime, anywhere —  and have been at the forefront of technology shifts.  These attributes enable Gen Z to be more comfortable with and are more willing to trust AI.

Developing trustworthy AI is important to pave the way for increased integration of AI now and in future generations. Trustworthy AI refers to artificial intelligence systems that can be relied upon to function as intended, while also operating in an ethical and socially responsible manner.  It is built on a foundation of autonomy, privacy, transparency, and security.

Trustworthy AI should be able to recognize and mitigate errors, and alert humans or secondary systems when necessary.  Constant feedback loops provide mechanisms to reduce machine learning biases and ethical dilemmas, thereby increasing trustworthiness in the system.  The Deloitte AI Institute developed a framework (see Figure 1, below) to identify and mitigate potential risks related to AI ethics at every stage of the AI lifecycle.

Figure 1. Deloitte AI Institute Trusted AI Framework, from ‘Trustworthy AI’ is a framework to help manage unique risk, by Irfan Saif and Beena Ammamath, MIT Technology Review, March 25, 2020

Trustworthy AI comes with unique challenges. A review of trust in AI highlighted five central AI trust challenges (see Table 1, below):  1) transparency and explainability, 2) accuracy and reliability, 3) automation, 4) anthropomorphism, and 5) mass data extraction. These challenges represent vulnerabilities as a key element of trust. Understanding and mitigating these risks is central to building trust in AI.

Table 1. Concept matrix of the five AI trust challenges and the respective vulnerabilities each creates for stakeholders, from “A Review of Trust in Artificial Intelligence: Challenges, Vulnerabilities and Future Directions,” by Steven Lockey, Nicole Gillespie, Daniel Holm, and Ida Asadi Someh, University of Queensland, Proceedings of the 54th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 2021

To this end, the European Commission’s AI High-Level Expert Group (AI HLEG) developed an initiative to ensure that AI is human-centric and trustworthy. Regulating AI to ensure security and privacy is a key variable to ensure AI trustworthiness.

Trustworthy AI is crucial in ensuring that the development and use of AI systems in the public and private sectors are safe and effective. It is also important to note that trustworthy AI is not only a technical matter but also a social and ethical one, requiring collaboration across different fields and perspectives to ensure that AI works for the benefit of all.  A framework like trustworthy AI can help organizations manage the unique risks associated with AI while ensuring that their systems remain transparent and accountable.

Analytic Confidence

The analytic confidence for this estimate is moderate. Sources were reliable and corroborated with one another. This report was generated using the author’s analysis and AI (Chat GTP, Perplexity, Unrestricted Intelligence, and Elicit) to help develop a framework and identify resources. All AI provided resources were verified to ensure validity. This report is subject to change based on new information gathered and analyzed through more detailed, collaborative research.

If you enjoyed this post, check out Team Future Nerds‘ complete The Rise of the Digital Native:  How the Next Generation of Analysts and Technology are Changing the Intelligence Landscape final report.

… then review the following related Mad Scientist content:

Engaging Generations Z and Alpha: Communicating Effectively with Digital Natives, by LTC James Esquivel

Weaponized Information: What We’ve Learned So Far…, Insights from the Mad Scientist Weaponized Information Series of Virtual Events and all of this series’ associated content and videos — especially Keith Law‘s presentation on Decision Making, as well as his Bias, Behavior, and Baseball blog post and associated podcast

The Exploitation of our Biases through Improved Technology, by Raechel Melling

Insights from Army Mad Scientist’s Back to the Future Conference

The Death of Authenticity: New Era Information Warfare

Sub-threshold Maneuver and the Flanking of U.S. National Security, by Dr. Russell Glenn

The Erosion of National Will – Implications for the Future Strategist, by Dr. Nick Marsella

A House Divided: Microtargeting and the next Great American Threat, by 1LT Carlin Keally

Recruiting the All-Volunteer Force of the Future and The Inexorable Role of Demographics, by proclaimed Mad Scientist Caroline Duckworth

U.S. Demographics, 2020-2028: Serving Generations and Service Propensity

Old Human vs. New Human

The AI Study Buddy at the Army War College (Part 1) and associated podcast, with LtCol Joe Buffamante, USMC

The AI Study Buddy at the Army War College (Part 2) and associated podcast, with Dr. Billy Barry

Chatty Cathy, Open the Pod Bay Doors: An Interview with ChatGPT and associated podcast

Artificial Intelligence: An Emerging Game-changer

Takeaways Learned about the Future of the AI Battlefield and associated information paper

The Guy Behind the Guy: AI as the Indispensable Marshal, by Brady Moore and Chris Sauceda

Integrating Artificial Intelligence into Military Operations, by Dr. James Mancillas

Prediction Machines: The Simple Economics of Artificial Intelligence

“Own the Night” and the associated Modern War Institute podcast, with proclaimed Mad Scientist Bob Work

Bringing AI to the Joint Force and associated podcast, with Jacqueline Tame, Alka Patel, and Dr. Jane Pinelis

AI Enhancing EI in War, by MAJ Vincent Dueñas

The Human Targeting Solution: An AI Story, by CW3 Jesse R. Crifasi

Bias and Machine Learning

An Appropriate Level of Trust…

How does the Army – as part of the Joint force – Build and Employ Teams to Compete, Penetrate, Disintegrate, and Exploit our Adversaries in the Future?

>>>>ANNOUNCEMENT:   Join USA Fight Club, CAE USA, and Army Mad Scientist on 23 September 2023 (this Saturday night!) from 1800-2200 for an evening of wargaming — check out the flyer here for more information!

 

 

 

>>>>REMINDER: The U.S. Army War College is preparing for the Third Annual Strategic Landpower Symposium on 7-9 May 2024.

Last year’s Second Annual Strategic Landpower Symposium included several general officer speakers. GEN Flynn, CG, USARPAC, was the Keynote speaker; GEN Hokanson, Chief, National Guard Bureau, was a guest speaker; and LTG Bernabe, CG, III Corps, was our Capstone speaker among seven other general officer speakers and panelists. Videos of this event can be found here and on the Strategic Landpower Symposium website.

Last year, we received 26 papers from the military academic community, including several submissions from foreign allied and partner officers and were able to select eight for publication through Marine Corps University Press. These selected papers are in the final stages of publication and will be available at the 2024 Strategic Landpower Symposium.

Check out the Call for Papers flyer for next year’s symposium, providing the event’s themes, proposed abstract submission guidelines/suspense, and paper submission guidelines/suspense.  For additional information about the Symposium, click here.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this blog post do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Department of Defense, Department of the Army, Army Futures Command (AFC), or Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC).

460. Do You Have What It Takes? Let’s Check Your Brain!

“We see this as having great potential for just getting the right people in the right places and making individuals’ aptitude known to them.”

[Editor’s Note:  Army Mad Scientist has extensively explored how Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI/ML) can be harnessed to enhance our Warfighters’ ability to fight at machine speed and sustain our decisive Soldier overmatch. But as frequent contributor COL Stefan J. Banach (USA-Ret.) has noted, the evolution and convergence of technologies has added a new non-kinetic battle space to conventional warfare, which in turn requires the recruiting and retention of adaptive Warfighters, with highly-tuned aptitudes for tactical innovation and rapid, decisive decision-making. The challenge facing the Army is how to effectively identify and then screen for these and other requisite talents.

Today’s episode of The Convergence podcast features our interview with Loran Ambs, Chief Technology Officer, Ideal Innovations, Inc., regarding his company’s research into measuring the distinctive characteristics of innate talent, identifying potential high performers, and how the Army can harness AI/ML to screen and match these high performers with specialty vocations — Read on!]


[If the podcast dashboard is not rendering correctly for you, please click here to listen to the podcast.]

Loran Ambs serves as the Chief Technology Officer for Ideal Innovations, Inc.  He supports the development and implementation of innovation processes at I-3 and DoD customer sites.  Mr. Ambs participates in the conception, development, and transition of technical solutions for problems affecting operations of the DoD and intelligence communities.  He conducts basic and applied research into techniques using measures of brain activation for the discovery of traits, aptitude, knowledge, interest, familiarity, group association and compatibility applied to selection and assessment of individuals for in military, government, academic and commercial environments. Mr. Ambs is inventor or co-inventor of more than 30 issued U.S. patents including several related to brain activation matching, brain matched compatibility, and knowledge discovery.   

Mr. Ambs previously served as the on-site PM in Afghanistan for the installation and operation of stand-off biometric data collection, remotely operated ISR systems, wireless data communication, data fusion, aggregation and presentation capabilities leading to increased safety and effectiveness of our soldiers and coalition partners.  He served as the Chief Scientist for the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization (JIEDDO) in which he participated in the identification, acquisition, development, test, and transition of solutions for the detection, neutralization, and mitigation of IEDs.  He collaborated with the DoD Service branches, DoD labs, National Labs, operational units, Congressional staffers, Defense Science Board, Army Science Board, National Academies, JASONS, industry, and academic institutions to focus the Nation’s resources on defeating IEDs.

Army Mad Scientist sat down with Mr. Ambs to discuss his company’s research into measuring the distinctive characteristics of innate talent, identifying potential high performers, and how the Army can harness AI/ML to screen and match these high performers with specialty vocations (e.g., pilots, special operators, and other select duty positions).  The following bullet points highlight key insights from our conversation:

      • Training is expensive – it costs $13 million to train one F-35 pilot – so devoting resources to personnel who are not suited to a specific competency or MOS is wasteful. Looking at a prospective trainee’s brain activation response, and comparing the results to a successful pilot can identify those who are more likely to complete the training successfully.
      • Brain activation response through Electroencephalogram (EEG) is inexpensive, highly portable, and well understood. Other methods like Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (FMRI) may provide higher detail and fidelity, but it’s not practical for each trainee to sit through an FMRI scan. Multiple EEG headsets can be administered to trainees quickly and unobtrusively to gather data.  
      • Mr. Ambs’ method was used with the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment to find a signature or baseline with which to compare their trainee data. Using a group of highly specialized aviators was deliberate in order to find a signature that would be vastly different from the general population
      • The data processing and pattern recognition powers of AI/ML can be harnessed to “crunch” EEG scan data to correlate brain activation responses and help identify signature markers for aptitudes associated with specialty vocations.   
      • Beyond identifying aptitudes for specific trainings or vocations, creating a large library of brain activation responses allows for comparisons to be made and outliers to be recognized. This means no brain scan goes unused, and personnel can be grouped even if conducted for a different training.  
      • Brain activation response monitoring is dynamic. If successful, this technology and method of evaluation could transcend Army Professional Military Education (PME) and training and be used to identify specific aptitudes in the Government writ-large, academia, and the private sector. 
      • This is not designed to exclude or deny anyone training. It is designed to assist in identifying innate capabilities and align strengths and weaknesses with the best opportunities for success. It is one piece of data at a more granular level to help decision-makers make better decisions.  

Stay tuned to the Mad Scientist Laboratory for our next episode of The Convergence podcast on 28 September 2023.

If you enjoyed this post, check out the following related content:

It’s All In Your Head: How The Brain Makes Better Soldiers and associated podcast, with Zach Schonbrun

Go with the Flow: Enhancing Human Cognition and associated podcast, with Dr. Maria Kozhevnikov

Making Quick Decisions, Quicker! and associated podcast, with proclaimed Mad Scientist Jason Sherwin

The Future of Learning: Personalized, Continuous, and Accelerated

Fight Club Prepares Lt Col Maddie Novák for Cross-Dimension Manoeuvre, by then LTC Arnel David, U.S. Army, and Major Aaron Moore, British Army, along with their interview in UK Fight Club – Gaming the Future Army and associated podcast

The Last Frontier, by PFC Peter Brenner

>>>>ANNOUNCEMENT:  The U.S. Army War College is preparing for the Third Annual Strategic Landpower Symposium on 7-9 May 2024. 

Last year’s Second Annual Strategic Landpower Symposium included several general officer speakers. GEN Flynn, CG, USARPAC, was our Keynote speaker; GEN Hokanson, Chief, National Guard Bureau, was a guest speaker; and LTG Bernabe, CG, III Corps, was our Capstone speaker among seven other general officer speakers and panelists. Videos of this event can be found here and on the Strategic Landpower Symposium website.

Last year, we received 26 papers from the military academic community, including several submissions from foreign allied and partner officers and were able to select eight for publication through Marine Corps University Press. These selected papers are in the final stages of publication and will be available at the 2024 Strategic Landpower Symposium.

Check out the Call for Papers flyer for next year’s symposium, providing the event’s themes, proposed abstract submission guidelines/suspense, and paper submission guidelines/suspense.  For additional information about the Symposium, click here.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this blog post do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Department of Defense, Department of the Army, Army Futures Command (AFC), or Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC).