Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. has written for Breaking Defense since 2011 and served as deputy editor for the site's first decade, covering technology, strategy, and policy with a particular focus on the US Army. He’s now a contributing editor focused on cyber, robotics, AI, and other critical technologies and policies that will shape the future of warfare. Sydney began covering defense at National Journal magazine in 1997 and holds degrees from Harvard, Cambridge, and Georgetown.
Instead of demanding an exhaustive “AI Bill of Materials.” the Army will only ask contractors for a “baseball card” of key stats on their AI — while building up its in-house capacity to check for bad code or “poisoned” data.
“Any commercial LLM that is out there, that is learning from the internet, is poisoned today,” Jennifer Swanson said, “but our main concern [is] those algorithms that are going to be informing battlefield decisions.”
“It’s great to have internet day to day in peacetime,” said Lt. Gen. Robert Skinner, director of the Defense Information Systems Agency, “but it’s more imperative to have it when bullets are flying.”
MDA Chief Lt. Gen. Heath Collins said more maneuverable missiles and drones have changed the missile defense game: Instead of just preparing to hit “fastballs,” he said, “now we’re hitting sliders and curveballs.”
The service’s new policy empowers “mission area data officers” for warfighting, intelligence, business operations, and enterprise IT, as well as institutionalizing what have been “ad hoc” data duties across the service, David Markowitz told Breaking Defense.
With a max value of $4.1 billion over five to 10 years, the C2BMC-Next contract will upgrade the global missile defense system to tap new satellite feeds, track hypersonic and cruise missiles, and employ AI — all potential building blocks of a future CJADC2 meta-network.
With ever-larger numbers of drones, unmanned submersibles and robot boats, said 4th Fleet Rear Adm. Jim Aiken, “what we didn’t realize was the volume of data we were going to get at headquarters.”
The civilian internet firm will build prototype software for Tactical Identity Credential & Access Management, a critical step in bringing “zero trust” cybersecurity to battlefield networks.
Two US officials exclusively tell Breaking Defense the details of new international “working groups” that are the next step in Washington’s campaign for ethical and safety standards for military AI and automation – without prohibiting their use entirely.
“For certain use cases, it’s proving to have a lot of value,” said Col. Matt “Nomad” Strohmeyer. “It’s not this panacea, but it’s also not this Pandora’s box of evil. It’s somewhere in between.”
45 percent of AAL’s completed projects have “transitioned” into regular DoD programs, but AAL admits others “end up in the valley of death due to factors external to the project, even if the project meets all milestones and the technology solves the military problem.”
Even if China doesn’t agree to or abide by new “confidence-building measures,” CNAS scholar Tom Shugart says, the US and its allies should adopt them unilaterally to reduce the risk of accidents or worse in the West Pacific.
