The Pentagon is still new with using artificial intelligenceand it’s looking for an outsider for help. Defensive Break yes have learned Craig Martell, Lyft’s head of machine learning, will join the Department of Defense as Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence (CDAO). He will lead the U.S. military’s strategies for AI, analytics, and data, and will play a key role in the Joint Command and Control initiative across regions to increase operational awareness. Multi-force through technology.
Martell is an outsider. While he directed the Naval School’s AI-driven Natural Language Processing Laboratory for 11 years, he did not serve in military leadership. Outside of Lyft, he’s best known for driving AI work at Dropbox and LinkedIn. As CDAO, Martell said he expects to spend the first three to six months identifying the “right customer” and the systems his office will need to improve. He will have a budget of $600 million for fiscal year 2023.
However, the office itself had only been established a few months before. Martell also told Defensive Break he believes that someone with a background of his own can be “very nimble” in the way that an established military leader cannot. The Department of Defense “really needs” someone who can quickly change strategies in AI and analytics, the new CDAO said.
The US military is relatively new to the use of AI as it is. The Ministry of Defense only publishes its draft Ethical Principles AI at the end of 2019 and the use of this technology initially focused more on on experiments more than autonomy on the front lines. Martell could play a key role in defining the Pentagon’s approach to AI for years to come, if only because many areas remain relatively unexplored.
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