Army leadership is set on shifting its network protection apparatus to leverage automated artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities as it looks to free up its growing cyber branch service to develop new tools to combat future threats.
Officials are seeking greater partnerships with industry to address future cyber warfare needs, and hope to speed up the transition to machine learning capabilities with input from the private sector.
“We are getting to a point now with artificial intelligence and machine learning that is really significant. We’re probably not 100 percent there yet, but we’re getting close,” Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, said Nov. 7 at the International Conference on Cyber Conflict.
Milley and commander of Army Cyber Command (ARCYBER), Lt. Gen. Paul Nakasone, both reiterated during their keynote addresses that AI capabilities will continue to be implemented on warfighting applications.
Future military cyber acquisitions must work toward building a self-healing network, have the ability to patch rapidly and include capabilities to eliminate advanced persistent threats, according to Nakasone.
The ARCYBER command wants tools that accomplish network protection goals while utilizing a fraction of his current workforce. A greater emphasis on AI and automation to detect and eliminate threats will free his cyber branch to focus on identifying adversarial trends and develop new strategies to protect the network.
“Anyone that’s been in the Army and has done exploitation or has done network operations understands that it’s really easy to say that I’ll get on this network and achieve a presence and have an ability to go after what I want to do in the future. But what if we had a machine that did that?” said Nakasone.
ARCYBER is aiming to build a workforce of “super-empowered individuals” tasked with building critical tools to be implemented by warfighters. Nakasone wants highly-skilled coders who can develop ideas needed to maintain control over the cyber domain.
Army’s cyber branch continues to grow in servicemembers, but officials are looking to industry partners to help bridge some of the current gaps in AI and machine learning capabilities.
“The soldiers underneath Paul Nakasone there are 19,000 of them, almost 20, and we don’t know how big this going to get. I suspect it’s going to get a lot bigger,” said Milley. “But we can’t move up alone. The military is only one entity within this experiment and the changing character of warfare. This is going to take teamwork with all of the best minds we can bring to the table. It’s going to take industry and our joint partners.”
For its cyber-related partnerships with industry, ARCYBER hopes to improve early warning detection and information sharing, while growing a global presence that allows the branch to better leverage its authorities.
“There are certain authorities that elements of our government bring that we as a Department of Defense cannot have. The ability to leverage those partnerships and leverage those authorities and leverage those capabilities provides us an asymmetric advantage when we take a look at threats to the nation,” said Nakasone. “Artificial intelligence is not being driven by governments these days. It’s being driven by the private sector.”
Milley reiterated that machine learning and AI will continue to change the fundamental characteristics of warfare, but an effort must be made to develop new capabilities before adversaries have a chance to gain an advantage.
“This technology exists, it’s proliferating and it’s coming at us faster than we may think. And it will have application in warfare by our adversaries, and we’re going to have to come to grips with it one way or the other,” said Milley.