Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks announced the release of the 2023 DOD Data, Analytics, and AI Adoption Strategy. The document was developed by the Chief Digital and AI Office (CDAO) and unifies previous strategic guidance to scale advanced capabilities across the enterprise. The announcement was made today during a press event hosted by Deputy Secretary Hicks on 'The State of AI in the Department of Defense.'
"We've worked tirelessly, for over a decade, to be a global leader in the fast and responsible development and use of AI technologies in the military sphere, creating policies appropriate for their specific uses." said Deputy Secretary Hicks. "As we've focused on integrating AI into our operations responsibly and at speed, our main reason for doing so has been straightforward: because it gives us even better decision advantage than we already have today."
The first DOD AI Strategy, published in 2018, and revised DOD Data Strategy, published in 2020, are two foundational documents that matured the Department's data-centric structures to increase the efficacy of fielding modern AI-enabled capabilities.
Since these strategies were published, industry has produced tools, platforms, and services, enabling effective, decentralized data management, and analytics and AI development. This updated 2023 Strategy focuses on how the Department will accelerate adoption of data, analytics and AI in a manner that is repeatable by all DoD Components.
"Accelerating the adoption of advanced data, analytics, and artificial intelligence technologies presents an unprecedented opportunity to equip Department leaders, at all levels, with the data they need, to make better decisions faster, from the boardroom to the battlefield," said the Chief Digital and AI Officer, Craig Martell. "Our strategic approach prioritizes an agile approach to adoption by focusing on the fundamentals of speed, agility, responsibility, and learning."
Additionally, during the State of AI briefing, Martell announced the dates, location and a call for speakers for the CDAO hosted, Advantage DoD 2024: Defense Data & AI Symposium to be held February 20-22, 2024, at the Washington Hilton in Washington, DC. The event will bring together key data leaders and developers from government, industry, and academia to discuss and action the future of cutting-edge data, analytics and artificial intelligence (AI), guiding the enablement of the US military's decision advantage.
As part of its agenda, the Advantage DOD 2024 will highlight work from Task Force Lima, the DOD team charged with determining the acceptable uses of large language models (LLMs). This track of the symposium will feature an examination of several use cases and discussions to determine the conditions for the optimal use of LLMs. The acceptability studies will last beyond the conference and are intended to create new government and industry standards concerning the technology.
The CDAO became operational in June 2022 and is dedicated to integrating and optimizing artificial intelligence capabilities across DOD. The office is responsible for accelerating DOD's adoption of data, analytics, and AI, enabling the Department's digital infrastructure and policy adoption to deliver scalable AI-driven solutions for enterprise and joint use cases, safeguarding the nation against current and emerging threats
