The Convergence - The Army's Mad Scientist Podcast

In this latest episode of “The Convergence,” we talk with Keith Law, Senior Baseball Writer at The Athletic, which he joined in January 2020 after spending thirteen and a half years at ESPN. Before joining ESPN.com in June 2006, Keith spent just over four years as the Special Assistant to the GM of the Toronto Blue Jays, and prior to that had written for Baseball Prospectus. Keith Law is the author of Smart Baseball: The Story Behind the Old Stats That Are Ruining the Game, the New Ones That Are Running It, and the Right Way to Think About Baseball, published in April 2017; and The Inside Game: Bad Calls, Strange Moves, and What Baseball Behavior Teaches Us About Ourselves, published in April of this year. In today’s podcast, Keith Law discusses the parallels between baseball and the Information Environment, how stats skew our thinking, and the implications of anchoring bias: The brain develops cognitive biases to manage extensive information. These biases lead information consumers to draw false conclusions and ignore conflicting data. Anchoring bias occurs when the brain latches onto the first piece of information, even if it is irrelevant to what you are working on. Creating radical change in a large, traditional organization, like the Army or a sports team, is best done through an individualized grassroots effort. Radical change, especially from people new to the organization, does not usually “win hearts and minds.” Information environments are full of persistent yet harmful beliefs. These need to be addressed, as those with these beliefs are often more aggressive about promoting their viewpoints. “Credibly foolish beliefs” benefit from a "first mover" advantage. These irrational narratives are rarely challenged by peers. Once these fallacies are adopted, they are difficult to let go. Data collection tools are becoming democratized, leading to individuals having more agency over information. To become a better writer, future analysts should work to become better readers, especially when it comes to reading books and articles outside the genre they write in. For people with a STEM background, being able to write well provides a personal competitive advantage for future employment. Stay tuned to the Mad Scientist Laboratory for our next podcast with proclaimed Mad Scientist Dr. Claire Nelson, futurist, engineer, and activist, discussing a smart futures approach to forecasting, technologies and science in small island nations, and positive impacts on the future on 3 Sep 2020!

In this latest episode of “The Convergence,” we talk with Samantha North, cyber investigator and consultant, who is completing her final year of a PhD in computational social science at the University of Bath. Ms. North’s research focuses on understanding the drivers of tribalism in online political behavior, using data science methods to analyze large data sets and behavioral psychology theory to guide the interpretation. She also explores the factors that make social media users more susceptible to disinformation. Her objective is to understand what drives tribalism in online political behavior, using a mix of data science and behavioral psychology. In today’s podcast, Samantha North discusses political tribalism online and our susceptibility to disinformation: People divide themselves into groups based on their similarities. Loyalties to these tribes increases self-esteem, and requires the designation and mistreatment of an outgroup. Disinformation targets these tribal divisions and attempts to amplify them. Despite the rise of fact-checking and counter-disinformation efforts, disinformation is still extremely effective, exposing the ease with which adversaries can exploit human cognitive biases. Disinformation tactics mirror digital marketing strategies. Thus, marketers and psychologists will be essential to understanding and combatting disinformation. Conspiracy theories, like those created in local, private Facebook groups, pose a bigger dangerthan individual fake news stories, as they create real-world grassroots action. Incentives for social media platforms to regulate disinformation based on tribalism are growing, especially as these trends are contributing to real-world actions. The future of disinformationwill probably include rises in “disinformation for money,” deepfakes, and malinformation (true information manipulated for nefarious or misdirecting purposes). The DoD and campaigns to counter political tribalism cannot only fixate on foreign actors because there are homegrown groups also looking to inflame divisions. There must also be more of a focus on how conspiracy theories form over time, especially in small regional groups which have large grassroots impacts. Stay tuned to the Mad Scientist Laboratory for our next podcast with proclaimed Mad Scientist Keith Law, author and Senior Baseball Writer with The Athletic, discussing the parallels between baseball and the Information Environment, how stats skew our thinking, and the implications of anchoring bias on 20 Aug 2020!

In this latest episode of “The Convergence,” we talk with guest bloggers LTC Arnel David, U.S. Army, and Major Aaron Moore, British Army, who recently penned Fight Club Prepares Lt Col Maddie Novák for Cross-Dimension Manoeuvre — describing the nascent revolution in Professional Military Education (PME) wrought by the convergence of Artificial Intelligence (AI), digital assistants, gaming, and Augmented and Virtual Reality (AR/VR). Using storytelling and backcasting, LTC David and Maj Moore vividly described how Leaders will seek out and leverage these technologies to hone their warfighting skills across all dimensions, enabling them to “think, fight, learn, repeat” and enhance their versatility as innovators on the battlefield. In today’s podcast, LTC David and Major Moore further discuss the convergence of technology and wargaming that resulted in Fight Club and how it is transforming Leader development: Fight Club designs realistic wargames to remove hierarchies and encourage players to attempt innovative solutions, while also creating a safe environment to fail repeatedly and learn from mistakes. These games replicate expensive training through a virtual setting, and harness younger generations’ aptitude for technology and virtual networking. The virtual setting also allows Fight Club to better connect players of different backgrounds, making the gaming more available and accessible. The DoD should implement more gaming in training. Wargaming can be effective in more frequent, smaller-scale games to increase Service members’ exposure to these types of decision making. Wargaming helps the Army and its international partners increase interoperability without having to run large-scale, time-compressed exercises. Gaming will allow the military to push innovation and will continue to attract younger generations who thrive in interactive environments. The competitive nature of gaming can inspire action and push people to develop more creative and effective solutions.

In this latest episode of “The Convergence,” we talk with Lisa Kaplan, who founded Alethea Group to help organizations navigate the new digital reality and protect themselves against disinformation. Ms. Kaplan served as digital director for Senator Angus King’s 2018 campaign, where she designed and executed a strategy to identify, understand, and respond to disinformation. She is one of the few people who has firsthand experience combating disinformation on the campaign trail. Ms. Kaplan has also briefed US, NATO, EU, and G-7 policy makers and officials on disinformation. Previously, she consulted with PwC for the U.S. State Department, and served as a U.S. Senate aide. In this episode, we talk with Ms. Kaplan about weaponized information as a national security problem, algorithmic silos created by social media, and disinformation as the next iteration of warfare. Some of the highlights from our interview include the following: Disinformation is a national security problem manifesting itself in politics. Open source information can be leveraged to create effective digital strategies to counter this rapidly-proliferating threat. Social media algorithms create algorithmic silos: personal echo chambers that create individual realities for users. This method of platform retention is creating more polarized information spaces. Algorithms will continue to get stronger over time, increasing the impact of this problem. Disinformation will become the next iteration of warfare, as it is comparatively inexpensive and easy to use. Bad actors can leverage algorithmic silos to target their disinformation to vulnerable populations. As a result, the government should identify vulnerable populations and develop support plans. The proliferation of fringe and conspiracy media outlets will make it difficult to know which information to trust. We should begin examining the long term impacts for children growing up in this environment, particularly in relation to their feelings towards U.S. competitors. We are all targets of disinformation, so we can all combat it. Thinking before you share, reading critically, searching for the right sources/authors, and avoiding sensationalized media can reduce the impact of disinformation. Remember, you are likely a trusted source to those around you. Conversations about disinformation trends are an important part of combating this threat. The U.S. Government has unmatched capacity to address disinformation, but needs to work towards legislation that will allow it to act in this space. Stay tuned to the Mad Scientist Laboratory for our next podcast with LTC Arnel David, U.S. Army, and Maj Aaron Moore, British Army, as they discuss Fight Club, the current revolution in Professional Military Education, and the role of Artificial Intelligence in future military operations on 23 July 2020!

In this latest episode of “The Convergence,” we talk with Molly Cain, founder of GovCity, the Nation’s first disruption and culture accelerator focused on government, civic, and culture change. Molly works at the intersection of technology and cultural disruption with broad ranging expertise in industry, startups, and helping the Federal Government tap into innovation with greater ambition and more visibility. In this episode, we talk with Ms. Cain about leadership, barriers to youth in government service, and rewarding disruption. Some of the highlights from our interview include the following: GovCity is a hackathon-style think tank that promotes collaboration, innovation, and disruptive thinking through 48-hour events. These events give people a safe space to share innovative ideas and have disruptive conversations. Government leaders should trust themselves in uncomfortable situations, and allow their teammates to make mistakes as they strive for innovation. There are lots of similarities between the government and private sectors. DoD can better harness this relationship by focusing more on learning about the local business ecosystem and collaboration with their partners. Private companies hoping to work with DoD should use sources like LinkedIn and Twitter to start conversations on departmental innovation. People who communicate and cross-index well are valuable in every workspace. Government employees should constantly send internship and job opportunities to young applicants, and eschew government jargon to make jobs more appealing to the next generation of innovators. Young people should seek to find the right boss, as well as the right job, so they can fully participate in their work. The government should innovate their promotion process by promoting more leaders who have made difficult or disruptive decisions rather than those who have “toed the line.” Stay tuned to the Mad Scientist Laboratory for our next podcast with Lisa Kaplan, founder of the Alethea Group, addressing weaponized information as a national security problem, algorithmic silos created by social media, and disinformation as the next iteration of warfare on 9 July 2020!

In this latest episode of “The Convergence,” we talk with Cindy Otis, a disinformation expert specializing in election security, digital investigations, and messaging. She is a non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab. Prior to joining the private sector, she spent a decade as a CIA officer, serving as an intelligence analyst, briefer, and manager. Her regional expertise includes Europe and the Middle East. Ms. Otis is the author of the forthcoming book True or False: A CIA Analyst’s Guide to Spotting Fake News, to be published on July 28, 2020 by Macmillan Publishers. In this episode, we discuss the role of technology in accelerating the spread of disinformation; its increasing use by state, non-state, and commercial actors; and the vital role an educated population has in implementing effective intervention tactics and counter-measures. Some of the highlights from our interview include the following: • Disinformation and propaganda have been a part of the information landscape for a long time, but the current news focus sometimes creates a misconception that it is a new phenomenon. The tools and tactics that organizations use might change with the creation of new media, but the patterns and messages are the same throughout the historical context. • Because fake news and disinformation are not new phenomena, there are actions that can be taken to defend against it and people can be armed against it. People should feel hopeful that there are actions they themselves can take to become a first line of defense against fake news. • People should also have a feeling of responsibility that they are part of the solution in being more conscientious about what information they consume and what they share. • The number of players involved in creating, disseminating, and amplifying disinformation will keep increasing as countries and groups see how effective and successful others currently are at using disinformation as a tool or weapon. • More foreign governments will be getting involved, but commercial entities will also move into the space as “disinformation-for-hire” with troll farms and black PR firms. • Most organizations, from DoD to non-profits, are similar in that they do not have a deep enough capability to look at the issue of disinformation. There need to be far more people trained in disinformation investigation and analysis. • Disinformation investigation often looks for the same trends and patterns from previous years, while disinformation actors have learned from those trends and become ever more sophisticated. • We need to pay more attention to the actual solutions of how we minimize the risk of disinformation with different intervention tactics, instead of only looking for current threat actors and trends. • Education plays a huge role in defending against disinformation, especially with organizations providing training to both consumers and journalists to consider information and use OSINT tools.Stay tuned to the Mad Scientist Laboratory for our next podcast with Molly Cain (founder of GovCity, former DHS Director of Venture, and entrepreneurship expert) addressing talent management, leadership, and innovation on 25 June 2020!

In this latest episode of “The Convergence,” we talk with Rob Albritton, Senior Director and AI Practice Lead at Octo Consulting Group. A former U.S. Army Geospatial Research Lab Scientist and Machine Learning Engineer at MITRE, Rob spent several years growing NVIDIA’s public sector team alongside the world’s foremost thought leaders on high-performance computing, AI, and deep learning. Rob now leads Octo’s oLabs AI Center of Excellence, where he guides and shapes Octo’s AI capability, strategy, and vision. In this episode, we discuss a realistic vision of the future of AI, its integration into the DoD, and what the Government can learn from the private sector. Some of the highlights include the following: Academics and industry tend to overestimate the readiness of effective AI, although real progress may occur at a rate faster than we expect. DoD can learn data best practices from industry and apply it to unique DoD practices. There is no need to reinvent the wheel, but each AI challenge should still be tackled in a unique way. AI publications have slowed, although we are not necessarily nearing an “AI winter.” Innovative applications for deep learning are still being discovered, and there is still significant academic interest in AI and profit to be made in the field. DoD focuses on the tech industry as a hub for AI talent, but this rhetoric may actually deter talent from working with the DoD. The military should consider a “greening” process to encourage young talent to connect with the military on AI applications. The DoD should promote its relationship with the AI industry by emphasizing transparency in its AI development and its use of “AI for good.” S. Soldiers are likely to encounter fully autonomous weapons systems on the battlefield. DoD should research ways to jam or deceive these systems, rather than compete in autonomous weapons, since U.S. ethical regulations are likely to continue to limit the development and use of fully autonomous lethal systems. Current rhetoric emphasizes AI competition with adversaries, particularly in relation to competition with China. While the United States’ adversaries are developing AI, the United States maintains the most creative and innovative culture with regard to AI development. Stay tuned to the Mad Scientist Laboratory, as our next podcast with Cindy Otis, former CIA officer, national security commentator, disinformation and cybersecurity expert, and author of TRUE OR FALSE: A CIA ANALYST’S GUIDE TO SPOTTING FAKE NEWS, will be posted on 11 June 2020!

In this latest episode of “The Convergence,” we talk with Kara Cunzeman, Lead Futurist for Strategic Foresight, with the Center for Space Policy and Strategy, at The Aerospace Corporation. In this role, Ms. Cunzeman is focused on cultivating a formalized approach to futures thinking through the strategic foresight Corporate Strategic Initiative (CSI), helping the enterprise adequately prepare its organizations and capabilities to proactively shape the future through innovative approaches across strategy, acquisition, science and technology portfolio management, policy, and operations. In this episode, we discuss strategic foresight, the future of space research, public-private partnerships, and advice for the next generation of engineers. Some of the highlights include: How we must conceptualize the use of space is rapidly evolving and it requires dynamic and innovative thinking to keep up with an expanding range of possibilities and competition in space. Strategic foresight practitioners aren’t usually valued until something unusual happens that mainstream thinking hadn’t considered. We can’t predict, but we can prepare, and having foresight helps us alleviate pains and tensions in society when something unexpected happens. We try to keep pace with strategic competitors in space, which is hard to do in the gray zone of modern warfare. Speed will be our security, requiring us to modularize technical efforts and eliminate bureaucracy and red tape. The phrase “keeping at pace” sounds reactionary. The real question is how do we develop and execute our own vision while precluding our competitors from dictating our agenda? While it may seem counter-intuitive, the Government can actually take risks where private industry cannot. Silicon Valley, Wall Street, and the National Security community need to engage with each other more. This collaboration will yield the greatest possible outcome. If you enjoyed this post and podcast, check out: Space 2035: A Surplus of Uncertainty and a Deficit of Trust, by Maj Rachel Reynolds Space: Challenges and Opportunities Ethics, Morals, and Legal Implications Star Wars 2050 and The Final Frontier: Directed Energy Applications in Outer Space, by Marie Murphy

In this latest episode of “The Convergence,” we talk with Dr. James Giordano, of the Georgetown University Medical Center. Dr. Giordano is the author of over 300 papers, 7 books, 21 book chapters, and 20 government white papers on brain science, national defense and ethics. In this episode, we break down the COVID-19 virus, the effect this pandemic has on the Nation, the impact on national security, and the potential implications on future bio-security. Highlights from the conversation include: This is an interesting virus in its evolution. It adapted from a mammalian species, a bat, to an intermediate species, to a human as many viruses will tend to do. I think what’s important to make available and understandable to the listening audience is that there is the likelihood that this will continue to occur and occur with some increasing frequency. On Ecological Intrusion - Humans are spreading into a variety of different niches that heretofore were primarily simply occupied by animal species and the extent of human-animal interaction is increasing. As well, environmental factors such as global warming and climate change may also precipitate the shift from animal interactions with humans to more direct interactions and may also cultivate the generation and perhaps evolution of a variety of different microbial species. On state and non-state actors using bio-weapons in the future….But one of the things that keeps coming up over and again irrespective of whether there’s a neurological function or there’s a non-neurological target, is the increasing ease at which organisms might modifiable through the use of currently available and developing gene-editing techniques. If I were an actor, or if I were working for a nation state, and I really didn’t care what I created, as long as I created something that might be disruptive, well then what happens there is you’re stacking the deck. So what we’re trying to use CRISPR for, and these other gene editing tools and techniques, is again directed or intentional modification towards n products of organisms that we understand what they’re going to be, what they’re going to do, and we’re trying to modify them in selective ways towards particular trajectories of structure and function. But if what I’m really trying to do is just create an organism that would be more infectious, transmissible, pathogenic… I really necessarily wouldn’t care what it is I created, only that I created something that had the necessary characteristics that I was then looking to implement. One of the things that we’re suggesting and the drum that we’re proverbially beating is that these types of gene editing techniques, not only taken alone, but in concert with other viable techniques and tools of the bio and life sciences are something of a game changer when it comes to the viability or possibility of developing novel or new biological organisms that may have pathological features that could be leveraged as agents of disruption and/or destruction. In other words, weaopnizing those things. We’re not really existing in a uniform environment of ethical universality. Different cultures have different histories, different philosophies, different needs, different values, and as a consequence, different ethics. Ethics is always about the effort or about the enterprise or about the environment in which it’s going to be used. For years there has been very explicit talk of bio-security gaps and or inadequacies at a number of levels within the various chains of structure and function across the levels of government and that this represented if not an Achilles heel, certainly a point of entry for vulnerability to other Achilles heels. For example the national economy, military readiness, public health care and he...

In this latest episode of “The Convergence,” we continue our discussions with research fellows from The College of William and Mary’s Project on International Peace and Security (PIPS). PIPS is one of the premier undergraduate think tanks in the country. Based at W&M’s Global Research Institute, PIPS is designed to bridge the gap between the academic and foreign policy communities in the area of undergraduate education. PIPS research fellows identify emerging international security issues and develop original policy recommendations to address those challenges. Undergraduate fellows have the chance to work with practitioners in the military and intelligence communities, and they present their work to policy officials and scholars at a year-end symposium in Washington, DC. In this episode, we discuss how our adversaries are employing technology-enabled disinformation campaigns, what China’s strategic export of its surveillance state means for the future of the internet, and the challenges posed by weaponized deepfakes with Lincoln Zaleski, Michaela Flemming, and Megan Hogan. Highlights from the conversation include: Liberal democracies are vulnerable to information warfare, and our adversaries are leveraging technological advances to more precisely target us via multiple axes. The U.S. should learn how Russia strategizes and executes its disinformation campaigns, and in turn target their vulnerabilities to raise the social and political costs for engaging us in that sphere. China is exporting its surveillance state, and cultivating client states that support its concept of cyber sovereignty — the right to control and police the internet according to its own laws. This digital authoritarianism represents a challenge to liberal democratic states, as the world becomes increasingly polarized between a China-centric bloc of digital authoritarian-influenced countries and a US-centric bloc of nations supporting a free and open internet. The proliferation of weaponized deepfakes will result in more intense and convincing disinformation campaigns targeting the US. Algorithms generating deepfakes are continuously evolving and learning how to replicate the appearance of reality, challenging detection teams that are constantly “playing catch-up” with their new permutations. If you enjoyed this post and podcast, check out our GEN Z and the OE event page on the Mad Scientist APAN site to read each of the PIPS research fellows’ abstracts… … watch Panel 1 and Panel 2 as they discuss the ramifications of their research on the OE and the changing character of warfare… … and listen to Part 1 of this podcast here.

In this latest episode of “The Convergence,” we talk to research fellows from The College of William and Mary’s Project on International Peace and Security (PIPS). PIPS is one of the premier undergraduate think tanks in the country. Based at W&M’s Global Research Institute, PIPS is designed to bridge the gap between the academic and foreign policy communities in the area of undergraduate education. PIPS research fellows identify emerging international security issues and develop original policy recommendations to address those challenges. Undergraduate fellows have the chance to work with practitioners in the military and intelligence communities, and they present their work to policy officials and scholars at a year-end symposium in Washington, DC. In this episode, we discuss biotechnology, artificial intelligence in the DoD, and authoritarianism affecting the U.S. with Marie Murphy, Clara Waterman, Caroline Duckworth, and Katherine Armstrong. Highlights from the conversation include: The US can be outcompeted in certain biotechnologies and become dependent on other countries for their access. States with different ethical standards and regulations compared to the United States could more quickly pursue and adopt these technologies, possibly resulting in novel bioweapons. Eventually, bioweapons will be able to target people based on their genetic code. Biotechnology is becoming a democratized technology. Data is the most critical component of artificial intelligence. However, much of the DoD’s data is inaccessible in stovepiped repositories, while that which is accessible has not been vetted — you don’t really know who’s had it or where it’s coming from. There is also a huge gap between those who are technically informed and those who are technically literate. Transnational authoritarianism is the targeting of co-ethnics and co-nationals; for the United States, these co-ethnic and co-national targets are US citizens and residents. The U.S. government and the public need to recognize this phenomenon, which has often been overlooked as isolated incidents, as cybercrime, as a civil society issue, and as infighting between outsiders. Stay tuned to the Mad Scientist Laboratory, as we will be releasing Part 2 of this podcast with the PIPS research fellows next week! If you enjoyed this post and podcast, check out our GEN Z and the OE event page on the Mad Scientist APAN site to read each of the PIPS research fellows’ abstracts… … and watch Panel 1 and Panel 2 as they discuss the ramifications of their research on the OE and the changing character of warfare.

In this latest episode of “The Convergence,” we talk to Dr. Alexander Kott, Chief Scientist for the Army Research Lab (ARL). In this role, he provides leadership in development of ARL’s technical strategy, maintaining the technical quality of ARL research, and representing ARL to the external technical community. In this episode, we discuss the Internet of Battlefield Things and modernizing the Army. Highlights from the conversation include: The battlefield is becoming saturated with devices that can do computation, some kind of thinking, and can communicate. These are not just things the Army owns. Complexity can actually be a good thing. Being able to “hide” on the battlefield is a good thing and we can hide in the complexity of the Internet of Battlefield Things. The battlefield of the future will be populated by multiple intelligent species. Humans will be very important but just one among them. How do humans co-exist with those intelligent species? We humans are not known for working and living well with other species, not even ourselves. The Army (and larger Department of Defense) has a collaborative relationship with industry that is actually beneficial. It is not just a competition for talent but rather a relationship that is a strength. A rising tide lifts all our boats. Every war has seen greater and greater ranges in magnitudes from the Civil War up to the Global War on Terrorism. In the future we may see an Army missile that could be intercontinental. We could see artillery “spanning a fraction of the globe.” This leads to global ground warfare and changes the battlefield calculus. Such a shift in warfare could change the Army’s relationship with other services and actualize the reality of multi-domain operations even more. Regimes that are unethical, immoral, and authoritarian lose the technological edge in the long run because as they run out of ways to use technologies they have developed for unethical and immoral purposes, they do not have thorough investment in other technology areas where the United States is excelling. Long-range, intelligent, precision fires may be a major threat to our Homeland in the future. The Homeland may not be as defensible as it has been for centuries. Stay tuned to the Mad Scientist Laboratory as we will be releasing a new podcast every other week with exciting and impactful guests — next up: The College of William and Mary’s Project for International Peace and Security Fellows!

In the fifth episode of “The Convergence” we talk to Zachery Tyson Brown, who is an Army veteran, analyst, consultant for the DoD, and Security fellow at the Truman National Security Project. Zach is a career intelligence officer now working at the intersection of emerging technologies, organizational structures, and strategic competition. Zach is most recently a graduate of the National Intelligence University, where his thesis, Adaptive Intelligence for an Age of Uncertainty, was awarded the LTC Michael D. Kuszewski Award for Outstanding Thesis on Operations-Intelligence Partnership. In this episode, we discuss conflict and competition, how to create intelligence from the onslaught of data, and structural and process changes to the Intelligence Community (IC). Highlights from the conversation: We have all this data that the IC collects. We spend billions of dollars on it every year, and a lot of it is left on the cutting room floor. We have a clog in the system that gets worse as the amount of information out there keeps increasing and we still have this outdated mechanism of delivery…we can’t keep pace with the volume of information that’s growing out there every day. The amount of data out there is going to very rapidly, probably already has, eclipse the ability of un-augmented humans to keep up with it. I really think we have to disaggregate that whole system. Move about to a federated sort of network architecture. Push autonomy down to the units at the forward edge of the battle area. We’re not focusing on that competition aspect involving the whole of government to use another buzzword. The commerce, treasury, state department. Because that information space is where the competition is happening today and it’s not just information it’s manipulation of public awareness and psychology. Now we have ISIS propagandists, the guys on Twitter that are like recruiting or spreading messages, and those guys are targets of kinetic strikes now because they’re considered to be combatants in that information space. One of the reasons, again, where I think we have to rethink this whole structure of the way we do interagency coordination, decision making at the national level, [is] because it’s too slow to keep up with the pace of emergent threats today. I really believe we are living through a revolutionary era and we have to question all the assumptions we’ve kind of inherited from the past couple hundred years.

In this episode, we talk with Michael Kanaan, Director of Operations for U.S. Air Force and MIT Artificial Intelligence. Following his graduation from the U.S. Air Force Academy he was the Officer in Charge of a $75 million hyperspectral mission at the National Air and Space Intelligence Center, and then the Assistant Director of Operations for the 417-member Geospatial Intelligence Squadron. Prior to his current role, Michael was the National Intelligence Community Information Technology Enterprise Lead for an 1,800-member enterprise responsible for data discovery, intelligence analysis, and targeting development against ISIS, and most recently the Co-Chair of Artificial Intelligence for the U.S. Air Force. In this episode, we’ll discuss the impact of AI on the armed forces, how we identify and cultivate talent, and the challenges that arise. Highlights from the conversation: AI is multidisciplinary. I’m not a computer scientist. The barriers to education have never been lower. You can teach yourself these kinds of things. And it’s what you do with AI that’s the real question. But make no mistake, I think the future rock stars in the AI sphere are most certainly sociologists and psychologists. Why don’t we treat programming languages as the equivalence to as the equivalent to foreign language aptitude and proficiency? We have a long history of doing this in the DoD. In fact if you bring that skillset into the DoD, we cherish it, we try to cultivate it the best we can. Well, why aren’t we doing that with computer languages? We need to team the techniques of the old with the ideas of the new. Experience is not dictated by age any longer. You can’t fall back and say, ‘well because I’ve done this for so long, I know about AI.’ It’s not supervising. We want to do this all transparently, very openly. So we published the Air Force AI strategy unclassified. So why we did it in principles was it’s not supervision. It’s not telling you how to get there, it’s providing and environment to get there. That’s the kind of flip in the digital age.

In this latest episode, we talk to LTG Eric Wesley, who is currently serving as the Director of the Futures and Concepts Center in Army Futures Command at Fort Eustis, VA. General Wesley has served in numerous operational units throughout his 34 year career and served as a staff officer and director at the Pentagon and White House. Prior to taking over the Futures and Concepts Center, General Wesley was the Commanding General of the U.S. Army Maneuver Center of Excellence at Fort Benning, Georgia. We talked to General Wesley in this episode about multi-domain operations, modernization, and the future Army.

The second episode of The Convergence features Dr. Margarita Konaev, Research Fellow at Georgetown University's Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET). Dr. Konaev is an expert in Russian military innovation in emerging technologies and her research on international security, armed conflict, non-state actors and urban warfare in the Middle East, Russia, and Eurasia has been published by the Journal of Global Security Studies, Conflict Management and Peace Science, the French Institute of International Relations, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Lawfare, War on the Rocks, Modern War Institute, Foreign Policy Research Institute, and a range of other outlets.Previously, she was a Non-Resident Fellow with the Modern War Institute at West Point, a post-doctoral fellow at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perry World House. Before joining CSET, Dr. Konaev worked as a Senior Principal in the Marketing and Communication practice at Gartner. She holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Notre Dame, an M.A. in Conflict Resolution from Georgetown University, and a B.A. from Brandeis University. In this episode. Dr. Konaev provides her opinions on the role of technology in warfare, autonomous systems in the military, the ethical questions that arise, and the importance of diversity.

The first episode of The Convergence features Dr. Sean McFate, foreign policy expert, author, and novelist. Dr. McFate is a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council, a Washington DC think tank, and a professor of strategy at the National Defense University and Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service. Additionally, he serves as an Advisor to Oxford University's Centre for Technology and Global Affairs. Dr. McFate's newest book is The New Rules of War: Victory in the Age of Durable Disorder, which was picked by The Economist as one of their best books of 2019. On the episode, Dr. McFate provides his opinions on the changing character of warfare, the rise of private military contractors, information warfare, and the effects these trends will have on the operational environment.