Special Operations Command Exploring AI Tech.

• Author: Tadjdeh, Yasmin
• Position: Algorithmic Warfare

With the Defense Department investing more funding into artificial intelligence platforms, Special Operations Command is also looking at how it can leverage such technologies to assist commandos around the globe.

"There are many ways that we are looking into artificial intelligence and deep learning," said Jim Smith, the command's acquisition executive.

One is by taking part in the Defense Department's Project Maven, an effort to develop technology that could help the military more quickly analyze intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance data collected by unmanned aerial vehicles, he said.

"We've got folks that stare at screens for many hours in the day watching an ISR feed," he said during remarks at the National Defense Industrial Association's annual Special Operations Forces Industry Conference in Tampa, Florida. "It almost seems custom-made for machine learning-type technology."

The command is working hand-in-hand with other Pentagon agencies on that effort, he noted. "We're on the edge of that for DoD," he added.

David Breede, program executive officer at SOCOM's special reconnaissance, surveillance and exploitation office, said the command is one of the primary organizations working on Project Maven. His office is using its full-motion video processing, exploitation and dissemination system to assist with the effort.

The PEO is participating in not "just the general meeting, but also the discussions of how things coming out of Maven might transition to a longer-term program," he told National Defense.

For now, Project Maven is focused on analyzing video data, but other advancements in automation and data analytics will also likely be examined, Breede noted. "We stay abreast of what they're doing," he added.

A key part of utilizing artificial intelligence properly is ensuring that the platform has enough data to learn from, as well as building a large database of information, Smith noted.

"We're in the process now of getting that robust database, that robust machine information so that our probability of 'Yes, that's a red truck' goes from where it is today--a fairly low percentage--to a very high percentage," Smith said.

Special operators often come across vast amounts of information that can be useful for military operations, he noted.

Lisa Sanders, director of SOCOM's science and technology office, said machine learning will be a key aspect of the command's new "hyper-enabled operator" concept which seeks to give commandos...