Department of Defense forms unit focused on piloting AI for military uses

The Department of Defense is creating a unit to expedite the adoption of cutting-edge artificial intelligence tools, with a focus on pilot programs designed to give warfighters and decision-makers an AI advantage.

The department said Wednesday its new AI Rapid Capabilities Cell will spearhead initiatives to advance and scale the deployment of AI-powered tools. The Pentagon said the new team will be managed by its Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office in partnership with the Defense Innovation Unit.

“We need an all-hands-on-deck approach to accelerate development and deployment of these tools for the Department of Defense to responsibly harness the tremendous promise of AI in everything from financial management to logistics to operations planning to autonomous systems,” Radha Plumb, leader of CDAO, said in a statement.

The new AI team focused on generative AI is arriving as a previous effort is shutting down. The department said the Task Force Lima initiative focused on harnessing generative AI is coming to an end and published a summary of the task force’s work online.

The CDAO said the task force found that the future of generative AI at the Pentagon will depend on having capable personnel and resources and said department policies would need to “evolve.”

The CDAO reported that the task force recommended the Pentagon work closer with the private sector and academia to get up-to-speed on generative AI, rapidly pilot new tools to learn of potential applications, and streamline department policies to scale the best solutions.

Earlier this year, the task force’s mission commander said the department had charged “red teams” with testing AI models for vulnerabilities as it worked to figure out where large language models ought to be used within the Department of Defense.

The mission commander avoided answering questions at a Defense Department-organized symposium in February about whether large language models could control autonomous weapons systems, such as militarized drones.

The Pentagon announced Wednesday that the new AI team, the AI RCC, would pick up where Task Force Lima’s work left off with an emphasis on piloting programs in warfighting and enterprise management areas.

The department said the warfighting area includes weapons development and testing, uncrewed and autonomous systems, intelligence activity, information and cyber operations.

As the new team studies using generative AI for warfighting, the department said the AI RCC will initially receive approximately $100 million taxpayer dollars for fiscal years 2024 and 2025 for its piloting projects.