Word for the day, it kind of governs how i conduct myself often times and just my frame of mind. Today, im going to pick an image of the day. If you look at your screen, one of our commissioners shared with me this image. And i think it really sets the tone and the stage and underscores the importance of why we are here and the significance of this panel. Is a chinese book for kindergartners. Chinese,ou dont speak circled our two letters. Ai. Kindergarten. Textbook. Ai. Us senator talked about tooling ourselves and getting ready from grade school to grad school. Now, we are talking about kindergarten or even prek, if you are going to keep ahead and really stay number one when it comes to ai. I just wanted to start with this image. Because it really, for me underscores the urgency of why this commission was formed and why it is so important that we are here today. Nscai has a broad mandate and working group number three is charged with recommending concrete steps the government should take to build and maintain an ai machine morning look force, address National Security and defense needs of the United States. Over the last eight months, this working group has assessed the current state of the National Security enterprises ai workforce, explore the roles of an ai workforce, explored the roles how the ai workforce might play and examine how the government might recruit, train, educate, manage, and to the extent that is necessary, retrain an ai workforce. Here are our judgments thus far. You will affirm this if you have read the report. Agencys needity a holistic workforce renovation for the ai era, that includes extending ai familiarity throughout organizations, infusing ethical training at every level, and spreading the use of modern software tools, developing ai ready leaders is especially critical, because without more wellinformed leaders who can go beyond talking points and reshape their organizations, the defense and intelligence communities will fail to compete in the ai era. A little hesitant because of the military presence today, but im going to make this next point. The department of defense and the Intelligence Community do not have effective ways to identify ai relevant skills that already exist in their workforce. [applause] so, i will make it out alive. Thank you very much. [laughter] they often fail to capitalize on their technical talents. Existing hiring authorities are adequate or close to adequate. More to the point. Government agencies and departments are not fully utilizing civilian hiring authorities to recruit ai talent often due to riskaverse human ofource teams and commanders civilian leaders that do not hold them sufficiently accountable. Am i going to walk out still . It is less clear if the same is holding true when it comes to pay scale. Fellowships focus and Exchange Opportunities can give officials and servicemembers access to cuttingedge technology and bring talents from our Top Ai Companies into federal service. These programs already exist and we have been talking about this yesterday, but they need to expand. Government employees who gain valuable skills from the private sector should have an opportunity to use them when they return to Government Service and my complementary fifth point is that the military and National Security agencys struggle to compete for top ai talent. The government needs to spend more effort showing that service is an opportunity to solve andue, exciting problems have a positive impact. It should try to reduce, if it disparagement of its workforce and better use pathways for recent graduates. There are two additional hard questions. We will explore them with our panelists today. Since the american ai talent pool depends heavily on International Students and workers. Our Global Competitiveness hinges on our ability to attract and retain top minds from around the world. If we fail to do so, it is unclear how we will continue to compete. Colleges and universities are under strain to keep pace with Student Interest in ai and Computer Science generally. The number of Computer Science majors is increasing at 10 times the rate of tenuretrack salaries. So, to begin and continue this theussion, we have asked chairman of the director and director with the Mckinsey Global institute and i take liberties with names, especially if it allows me to use some consonants that i dont usually use a lot. The former Deputy Director of national intelligence. And the chair of the future work for singularity university. They will provide their perspectives on these two questions, primarily, but not exclusively. How important is organizational structure for capitalizing on Emergent Technology challenges . How should the National Security agencies educate leaders and users who do not participate in the Development Process to deploy, use, and resource ai Available Solutions effectively and ethically . Very and thoughtfully. [laughter] im sorry. [laughter] organizational construct is very important. The second is how to deal with your workforce, you have to do it thoughtfully. Stepet me create a quick for you that begins before that and extends after it. Things we need to have to effectively integrate these technologies into a workflow. The first is you have to have imperatives. The organization has to believe it must. If the organization does not believe that it must, then it will be a technology or it will be left to the innovators and you will have change, but it will not be at scale and at speed. For the Intelligence Community, you need to see the world as it is. You need to understand what your mission is. It isnt about secrecy, it is about knowing a little bit more and little bit sooner. And if you look at this world with abundant data and ubiquitous technology, speed of decisionmaking. If you are the Intelligence Community and you are a leader, then you must find a way to introduce the ability to handle volume,m speed and from but also distance making. The technologies that are emergent are the ones that you must have. You have to have imperative and you have to have csuite buyin. If you dont, then you will fitted in after you have done your real mission. You need infrastructure. Earlier panels talked about the information infrastructure to support it. Various stages of building that infrastructure, even those of us who built infrastructure built it for humans to use and now we are trying to figure out how machines use the infrastructure because data uses it differently than people. They use it differently. There is that information infrastructure, but there was also the infrastructure that brings people into the mix, and the reason why you have to have that is so that people can play with the new capabilities. What is really important when you want to have data is you need to be able to integrate it with no cost. If you dont have infrastructure that allows you to have barriers, you wont be able to get that curiosity that will get the organization to figure out what it can do and he wont get pair withn pull to the technology push. Organizationally, you need two types of organization. Organization to support your technologies. Opine that we can attract anybody. The Intelligence Community, our mission is so exciting still and such a possibility that people will come, but they find they are not supported with the same sorts of things they can find outside. At the 510 year mark, they cannot stand not being able to pursue their craft and so they go somewhere where they can. So, you have to have a way to support them technically and get them around people , but the other thing is you need to think about whether the organizational model needs to change because technology is so embedded with what we do that the serial process of the technology is sitting someplace else and pumping capability into a work unit is not necessarily the model we need. I think the organizational models change. Organizational construct for your technical humans and then work units that allow the integration and the transfer of ideas and at speed to happen and the last one is you need process. Revolution. Cess itn when the leader wants and you have the infrastructure supporting it and you have the organizations that demand it, all of them come crashing into processes that were never expected to be designed for this moment, and we dash people into despair because the processes do that. One of the things we need to do is think about who we are putting in charge of designing new processes, because the people we have now dont. As far as how you deal with a mixed workforce. Need to provide the throughes to those things i mentioned for people who want to become to be able to come and you have to recognize that some people are not going to be able to come and you have to treat them honorably and offer them other solutions. We do have a demographic problem that we are going to have to address. I think the middle leadership is probably the most urgent need. It does not understand this is fundamentally a technical world and they wont trust the ideas coming up can actually affect the solutions. I will end it there. I appreciate that. It really underscores the culture. What people find when they get there. I appreciate those points. Primarily everything that you just said. Doctor . Im delighted to be here. The report the commission has put out is very spot on. I know there is a lot more work to come, but i particularly liked the fact that it points talent to the center. Puts the talented workforce at the center. That is absolutely critical. When you think about what was mentioned earlier in the discussions today, the triangle that his government, university, and the private sectors, that is a critical triangle when it comes to these talents. What is it about ai talents that we need to address and reflect in our organization . That there are four or five specific things worth understanding. I will frame these as problems. The first problem we have is we just dont have enough people with distinctive ai capabilities in the government and you could even argue broadly in the economy. We have a two few problem that we need to solve for somehow. This is coupled with the second this is coupled with the second problem, a pipeline problem. If you look at the pipeline we need in ai, it is woefully weak. We look at universities and places we have relied on for talent, which has been a good domestic pipeline, but also students coming to the United States from other places. The pipeline issues, i was struck that if you look at the and the federal agents that put them out, they suggest less than 3 of all i. T. Professionals under the age of 30, that is problematic. Challenges is absolutely important. The third challenge in the thece is what i call many types needed problem. What i mean is when we have a talented workforce for ai, we need many different types. Not the deep experts, we need many of those, we do not have enough. But we also need people who are developers, who will not do the fundamental research but do the Development Work to build applications. Who needlso need users to know how this works into the workflows and how they use these technologies. We will need leaders. The report does categorize the difference, but it is important to recognize the talent , thereem and value chain are different capabilities and roles. Some are easier to transition people into, some are harder, but it is a monolithic problem when it comes to the ai workforce. Is the flower four problem. Of the threeue legs of the triangle, government, universities, and private sector, right now most of the flow is to the private sector. Almost entirely. The government gets the short end of that stick. How do we solve the flow problem is problematic. This problem is real for universities. Robotics 23 in years ago, that tells you how old i am. At that time, if you are looking at the best cuttingedge robotics, you look at a handful of universities, that is were the best work is being done. That is not true anymore, most of the groundbreaking research is in the private sector. The flow problem is a big challenge. I know in some conversations this has come up, and i might characterize it as a mission problem. Case you couldhe technologists, and a time when people imagine if you wanted to do something good for the world, Public Service, you go into the military and do good things for society. Technologists have a few more choices. Look at the young graduates who see the private sector as one of the ways to change the world, technology for good. Arguably, the monopoly that Public Service used to have is the mechanism for smart and talented people to do Amazing Things without many more competitors. There is more work that the government needs to do. What does this mean for organizations and the organizational structure . There are some useful lessons from the private sector. I spend an amount of time in the private sector and one of the things you see, there was a time when companies had a hard time Understanding Technology is fundamental to what they do. Now everyone has come to realize every company is a technology company, it is not something people in the corner do, but it is fundamental to the enterprise. Tot mindset needs to come federal agencies, this is not just something a few people will do in the corner, it has to be part of the system. This shows up in a few places. We should also think about infrastructure. Things specific to ai, if you talk to ai people, they will tell you you need amazing people for the other rhythms, but you need tools and data. Of thelook at one reasons people go to the private sector for ai is compute and data and tools. Making sure the organizations have the ability to give people access to the leading tools, the amount of compute that they need, the infrastructure they need to do the work in interesting ways is another piece of the organizational chains required. The other thing is ways of working, and general shanahan spoke about this in the morning, there is a mismatch in terms of agility and pace. I think our defense agencies worked historically that does not match the pace in ways of working that these technologies now require, the ability to iterate and test things and so forth. Organizations have to be comfortable doing that. Let me end on a couple of notes related to people. One of the things we have you look at investment in technology in the private sector, there is a , forc that people use every dollar of investment in the technology you make, you need to invest another 20 in management. It is not about buying the technology, there are the chains that need to happen in the organization before organizations can capitalize. This may be what you are alluding to for the change for our agencies to work. This is something we have not talked about, Career Pathways. One of the things that helps a when youu have bring people into organizations, and there are Career Pathways where they can grow and succeed to the highest levels of those organizations on the basis of their unique skills, you see this in companies all the time. Until we see chief information toicers at the table able affect the organization, and people can see Career Pathways, this was not taken seriously. It was the kids in the basement doing technology, but this is how people can progress in the organization. That is some of the fundamentals that need to be required for our defense and National Security agencies. Those are some Lessons Learned from our experience. Wonderful. To second or third thanks for inviting me. I am looking forward to seeing more of the output. Universities, think tank based, and Silicon Valley is not about the identity issues we are working on. To be United States, accredited you have to pour glue on your work every two years. We have brainiacs to work on everything, and i get to pull from their brains about the future of the organization, and future of learning. Things in the way i read the questions, the framing i often get is let me understand this are we putting efforts on upgrading humans or trying to change the systems including our organizations . And my answer is yes, you have to do both. The systems are at a disadvantage, the opportunities to help the right kind of skills and capabilities to solve the right problems. If you do not help people have the tools and learning they need, you will have this continual mismatch. I will focus first on the humans. Is thatalk a lot about some of the framing i see, we are going through the biggest going from did agricultural to industrial economies. We are doing it in a blinding amount of time. What that means for humans, there are ways we are reacting isthat, and technology potentially a great enabler im a but it is increasing that pace. We are shifting to what i call a portfolio of work im a rather than one person, one job, we have an ambiguous set of different constructs and activities that people do. Can my kid get a real job . The answer is, working at a day job or on a startup with your friends is the rational response to an exponentially changing world. How do you think about how you then leverage that kind of unbundling of work, and being able to channel human energies to solve the problems you want . That is the first opportunity, to think in terms were we help humans to upgrade themselves. There are issues in the workforce that we can take advantage of, because it creates we change our organizations in the right way. It is a rare situation were technology can be helpful if we use it correctly. , talk about the ai superpowers china and russia and others, but what are the superpowers that technology can help us to have so we can be supported in solving the problems of tomorrow . To the organization issues, in the same way we are saying constructs around the way humans work changing, the organization is a construct left over. The idea of a corporate hierarchy, we trace that back to alexander the great. That shifted from agricultural to industrial models, we created this thing called an organization, and i use the analogy of the box. There is abundance outside the box and scarcity inside the box. We did that as a rational response to build factories and channel the energies of humans when the best medications technology was a carrier pigeon. Now we have these digital distraction devices that we carry around. Phrases is, today is probably the slowest day of the rest of your life. You will look back in 10 years and say, i remember when you did not have chips embedded in your head, and that sort of thing. We see it is only going to increase. The idea that organization has a future static state, we do not see that. You need to be able to help people continually adapt amma continually adapt, and the technologies themselves will not slow down, they will only increase. We need a new way of thinking about solving these problems. , because iead hurts am listening to the three of you a simplethere is refrain i could put forth, it is that you are demanding from us, asking these organizations, government, academia and the like to do some things in ways we are not organically poised to do. You are throwing out the entire model which has built this framework, and you are saying Going Forward there might be if you are not saying that, please counter that the model Going Forward will enable all the things that we speak of, and the things necessary for National Security. The way we went about it until now is not the way that will get us to nirvana. I think that is right and not scary. Im scared. If iwould be scared thought the future world was for the technology and the humans to self organize. Difficultiesf the in the last 20 years when the Committee Case ands, when the communications had value, now it is infinitely available, and humans are still trying to our privatelet sector figure out where we have to go with which technology. You need government. The government cannot act in this world to provide the functions that government does in the same way it did. I love your quotation on change i have another one which is i hate change, but i love relevance more. To me, the function of government, National Security, you cannot affect it the way we have. It is not working. It is ripping at the seams. It is too slow. It is not expensive enough. You do still have the people, but people without imperative are going to have a hard time delivering the outcome that we need. Imperative just to prosecute a technology or take it as far as it will go has limitations to it. Look at Mark Zuckerberg sitting in front of congress. Od, i am responsible. When he started he did not understand the volume that technology has. The reason i am not concerned, if organizations understand what their purpose is, but let go of the modality and develop new craft as you are articulating, i think we can get there. But if we think it is willynilly, or i have to hold onto the ways i have done in the tot, those are antithetical the process we neechy some peopa and say that is attractive. F those things, but not either or. Government more than a year or two. Since i was 20. We get tothe world do your nirvana . I am serious. Youve got sticky floors and obvious ceilings that would potentially prevent us from getting there. What are the outlines . What are the three things that will get rid of that feeling and leadership does not matter, it does. It sets the direction and can make some of the rules. From a government is effective, our responsibility is to have a longer horizon and deeper pocketbooks. Not endorse senator schumers proposal, but i like it because it is a foundational thing you need to do, you need more. A more to create permeable membrane between the public and private sector for talent, for ideas, but it cannot just be one way. The private sector has to realize their solutions have to work at scale. , semipermeable membrane, and reinvestment in the foundation that will allow foro have the basis applications Going Forward. Optimistici am more than the question suggests for the following reasons. Sorry, i am from the south. I am optimistic for the following reasons, but there is action at the end of it. Of theots of instances kind of change in an iteration we are talking about. At what the Defense Department is recommending, look at this report, look at what various leaders are doing, look at the fellows programs starting to emerge to provide mechanisms to move back and forth between industry and the government. You have lots of these examples, that is good. Look at some of the leaders who have stepped up, general shanahan and some others. Admiral onir with an a task force in innovation. You have leaders who are emerging. The challenge is twofold, it is too small, too incremental, and not moving quickly enough. In the past we might have been , andto live with that slowly adapt and change over time. This time is a little bit different. I love numbers, so take the investment question. China, a competitor in some fun numbers on this, if you look at the rate at which the u. S. Is investing in basic research that sees a lot of these innovations, the peak was in 1964 when we were spending 2 of gdp on research. We sustained that for a while, then it has dropped to about 0. 6 of gdp. Look at the other side of the they arey, at the rate investing, they are on a path that in about a decade, if they keep up with investment spending, they will be spending about 2. 5 of their gdp at a all expectations, their economy will be the size of our economy. The scale and pace we are talking about requires us to move faster. I love the fledglings in innovation and calls to action, biggerst reached into and faster, that is the challenge. In budgetary allocations achieve this, you cannot ignore the political dynamic. That is why it is important that we find a way to bring the public along. We have to get the support. It is a democracy. No one can just realize a budget, that is the beauty of this country. We have to bring the public along to understand this is important and foundational and fundamental to make these changes. Off, i am the last inson to suggest complacency terms of nimbleness of Government Agencies. This is a work in progress. We have Silicon Valley talking about nimble companies, and i askd time with ceos who about the same challenges. They have the same problems, and incumbents is the dilemma. They are focusing on the same issues. You find some consistency. The first is courageous leaders, some people setting the north star. Then focus on the managers, that is the linchpin, they will decide whether or not your Organization Lives or dies. They will manage the information going up and the power going down, and they have to be chained in this model. This sounds random, but if you want a great book on the subject , read moon shots in education. Teaching do not get me started on education or i will go off on that for a long time i have no moral standing. Stays onthe old model the stage, and we need to move the guide to the side. That is the model for the adaptive manager, how you help them take of themselves not as the one who controls the work of the employees, but the one who is enabling them to dynamically work on problems. , theyou have that path direction you are going, what is the role of every individual being able to enable that change, and an ongoing process of change . Thistry does not have perfect, but they have processes they are going through where they are trying to build adaptive organizations that can be learned from. Industry can get this wrong. For these issues, we cannot get it wrong. Then an environment where risks are higher, there is a dynamic tension with what kind of Risk Management processes you put in place. It is not just that you are managing your citizens money, but their ability to have a secure country. There are no shrugging violets on this panel. If you have questions, raise your hand and we will give the mic to you. A lot of what we are speaking in terms of working group three, the questions, i was worried about what we will speak about, because a lot of questions were put forth. If you want to get more granular or reask your question stated in a different way, now is the opportunity to do so. By a show of hands, please tell me because i do not know how many questions i have, by a show nf hands if you care to weigh i on this conversation, do so at this time. We have one taker. If the state who you are and where you are from. I am from the American Psychological association. One of the things i am hearing you say when we are discussing what the Workforce Needs to look like for innovation and ai amma i hear mostly computer scientists and technologists. In the dod,mrades because i serve there for 22 years, i wanted to expand on that about diversity of talent on what nai professional is in your worlds. First off, there is Research Going back to the 1950s when we shifted from a war footing to a consumer economy that was good work on understanding human skills. Framing. E called there are things knowledge and transferable skills. Today we call them hard and soft skills. These are anchored or rooted in a particular arena, and transferable. We get over indexed on the specific knowledges that we believe are needed at a beticular period of time to of the train people to solve certain kinds of problems, our Education Systems are geared. Owards that to turn out people there are other skills that will allow people to be adaptive and collaborative, and we are not training for those. The shelf life of information is decaying rapidly. Instead, i push people to think of what is the range of portfolio of skills we need . The truth is, there will be deep knowledges that will continually to be thebe able equivalent of a car mechanic. A lot of people do not know how to drive the car, they have to have a range of perspectives to solve problems with dynamic teams. It is really clear. Google did an analysis and found there are only two characteristics to teams, psychological safety, people who can brainstorm together, and psychological diversity. It has to be a lot of skills we think of as soft, or people trained in psychology in a range of different littler arts different liberal arts background. In Silicon Valley, we have the index on technical skills, and we are ignoring the others required to solve problems dynamically. Two things to agree with or eightre are seven different kinds of capabilities. You look at the majority of them , they are not Computer Science. The other point, the ai community recognizing itself, for example, i have been involved in setting up an institution at stanford, and by design, that institute is a multidisciplinary institute. If you look at what is going on there, you see scientists and roboticists. The codirectors of the institute , one is a computer scientist, and the other is a philosopher. They are trying to see this recognition that this takes multiple skills and capabilities. We need to move away from this ai skills topic as being primarily about Computer Science. It is not. That, ike a twist on think this is a technical world. I dont care who you are you need to become trouble with technology. You may not be the person developing, but if you are not a comfortable data swimmer, you will have a hard time. As these technologies become more ubiquitous, the differentiator will be Critical Thinking. Both the technologists have to have in their head use and the decisionmakers have to have that responsibility. If you take secretary kissingers comments, if you believe you have that responsibility for use, you will get to the issue of ethics. Because nothing changed about the responsibility of the organization just because you introduced a technology. Is that application and interpretation . You have to understand the responsibilities. That is the Critical Thinking peace. I actually think you will see a resurgence of the liberal Arts Education as technology permeates even more broadly because that is going to be what is going to make a difference in terms of progress. Earthing going back and forgive me for being fixated, it is kind of a sudden thing to be honest with you, again, you are speaking about being disruptive within both public and private sectors. Affirming that the composition within those sectors will again be more diverse in a number of ways, particularly when it relates to disciplines, but that again is not natural or comfortable and it is not easy to manage. Government,y in the where historically, our promise is stability of employment. You said that out loud . [laughter] , and that has led to some of the greatest accomplishments of free society because of that. But it is not necessarily the model that we need Going Forward. Im very proud to have served in the Intelligence Community for almost four years. When i talk to young people, i say, it is the best first 510 years of your career. It is. You will understand the use case, but at 510 years, i want you to move. I think there are partnerships we talked about that you could imagine i could imagine a company saying, we are going after the same talent and i want that talents first five years to be in the government. You said the most keyword. I really think one of the greatest places his purpose. My father was a recovering minister. A recovering minister. He went to go help other ministers being laid off and he wrote a pamphlet that turned into a book called what color is your parachute . He had a construct and he broke down jobs and also the characteristics of us as humans and there are seven different characteristics, but center of the target was purpose. The heads of companies and the boards of directors pound on tables and they ask why young kids wont come to work for their companies, they say, kids are asking them, what is your purpose . What is the purpose of your organization . You have purpose nailed in the Public Sector. That is your superpower. That is the place to start from. It is about that process and helping on board, even if it is the first 510 years or the later 10 years, but you dont have to make that up. That is the northstar to bring that talent in. It just has to be clear about how they can actually help. Beso, Public Sector needs to a Better Process . And also really clear. One example i think that is very the whole model of getting a bunch of innovators , we haveproduct clear to become more problemcentric. Agencies become very profit centric. They forget the problem they were trying to solve. The more problemcentric you can become, you can have an impact on it. Ofough a team at the state california, which suddenly made marijuana legal, changing the records of 50,000 people who had convictions in the records and wiping them out automatically. That was only done because you brought a bunch of these innovators in to solve that problem. Any questions . To my right. My name is jim perkins. Iding im so sorry sort of blanked out. The ability to retain the right talent because many of the people with these skills are leaving out of frustration because you have the technology and the data, but the lack of a implementation is just killing them. I think we just need to tackle those problems. So, there is just the peoplephic group of not who are just waiting until 10 year is up, we need to help that. That is a difficult thing to say. But it is something we are going to need to. The second is if we dont create the environment where the talent can thrive, the promise wont have been enough. Be that theto government was the only place where some of these really tough problems were being attacked. So if you want to do mathematics or if you wanted to work with highperformance computing, you had to be in the government, if you wanted to do geospatial information, you had to be in the government. Now, there are so many other outlets. When i talk about the infrastructure and process, it is to get at that problem. Now, that is a big problem for us, which is why i think the partnership and that membrane of saying, you know what, i want you to go out now and work on your craft and develop new things and that is still part of our tent. The National Security tend it much bigger than government is muchions tent bigger than the government institutions. That is the way we can address supply and demand and the talent problem of keeping people engaged without having them have to wait until we solve the bureaucratic issues of government structures as they exist today. If you just took the small step of saying, im going to free that up, and not worry about the justification behind sending , that is a company b way for us to jumpstart this. I think the companies would love it because it kind of inoculates their people in terms of the issues. That is what i would do. Final thought. Another hand back here . Way in the back . The other person. If you can approach whoever has the microphone on the side. So we can cut out a few seconds. I work at schmidt futures as a product manager. I just graduated from the stanford Computer Science department and i talked to a lot of people deciding about their first jobs out of college, a lot of people specializing in ai. One of the things i noticed over and over again is it is so hard to turn down a super highpaying job from the private sector with stock options, bonuses, it is very hard to do that as a new graduate. What are your most concrete proposals for solving the pay ,ap, beyond only tours of duty but recruiting people to government for the long term . We talked about that a bit in the report. A couple things. One of the things that has been proposed in various circles is the idea that when people are publicon jobs that are service in mind and based on , suchtional technologies as people like yourselves who have graduated, why wouldnt the federal government right off their loans . Sure, the government may not pay them, google will pay them, why not underwrite the cost of the education of the people invested in these foundational technologies . There are other ways other than the bonus check for the stock option that are meaningful . A couple things. Reasons that things like tours of duty are the default is that there is some period of time you will be focusing on a specific problem, but then go and make the bigger paycheck, it is risk reduction. What is the longterm arc of your career . Not to be a broken record on this, but up the volume on purpose. We know from 50 years of work with parachutes that if you give people to jobs and one pays pretty well, but it is lacking the purpose that they feel, the reason they are on the planet, and another job that pays less, but as the purpose baked in, if you can factor out some of the circumstantial issues like the fact that you have heavy student loans, people will choose door number two over and over again, depending upon the risk profile. Purpose to amp up the part and carve out the problem so it is very clear and then there is probably a Publicprivate Partnership in between where, actually, they can be personally on loan to solve problems partially on loan to solve problems. These are all softening the walls of the organizations mentality. Ande have Retention Bonuses hiring bonuses, what we most could do is make it faster. If i could give someone the offer the same time they got it from the private sector, not deferred by 16 months. [laughter] that is real. That is real. Last question from the audience. Im so sorry about that. Im part of the u. S. Air force, m. I. T. Accelerator at cambridge. I just came out of a tour of industry with amazon, going through their Machine University learning university. What was huge to me was this idea of the democratization of ai and a lot of these Tech Companies have developed these internal school outs to upscaled air force. Upscale their force. What do you see as the role for andstry and for academia lincoln laboratory, Oak Ridge National laboratory in helping createale the force to this organic capability within the dod . Thank you. Quick answer. First off, i dont want to be word police. I have always worried about words like upscale and rescale. I would much rather talk about a person trying to upgrade their own capabilities. I go back to the publicprivate interaction. There is no reason those organizations, those private companies with resources could not basically construct boot camps, were Government Agencies can be continually identifying the skill sets that they want and they could have the processes by which they could dynamically connect to that program, have people do the immersive process, and get trained very rapidly. Duty, such as the one you just did, i think we could do that at a much larger scale. Agencieshe government do a good job of creating a sense of excitement for the kind of work that people have been doing. Anyone who wants to do Machine Learning in the weather or climate, the government has better data than anybody. How do you get people to work with departments in the government that have better assets to offer the people answering those problems . Final word time is up. Im so sorry. I wanted forgive me. [laughter] youword answer from each of about what you are most excited about for an ai future. We have 20 seconds. It is going to allow us to solve the hardest problems in the world. [laughter] maximizing human potential. Curiosity enablement. Thank you very much. [applause] [applause] we are going to take a 10 minute we willhen introduce our next speaker. Stay in your seats. Forget that. No break. [laughter] if everybody could stay in your seats, thank you. [general chatter] [general chatter] if i could get your attention. It is my distinguished pleasure to introduce the secretary of defense. Thank you so much for your attention. [applause] everybody settle down. Still have come conversations going on. Good afternoon. Thank you for that introduction. The work this commission is doing in bringing together academia, defense, and business is critically important. Im going to move around, i cant see over here. Thank you for inviting me to speak today. Its great to be here. The world around us is changing at a pace faster than ever before. Emergingologies are that are fundamentally altering how we think about, plan, and prepare for war. 28 years ago, i saw the transformative power of technology during operation desert storm. I was a young infantry officer with the 101st airborne division. Became the in what deepest air assault into enemy territory. Then we cut off the republican guard. The gulf war was the proving ground for a new generation of weapons from laserguided smart bombs to stealth aircraft to the first widespread use of gps. By liberating kuwait and defeating the Iraqi Military in a matter of days, American Forces demonstrated our mastery of the digital revolution and mastered cutting edge soviet technology obsolete. Suddenly, they noticed the hum aheadsian uabs over following cyberattacks after a flurry of Russian Artillery rained down on them. The whole episode lasted just a few minutes, but it inflicted tremendous damage. Dozens of soldiers were killed, hundreds wounded, most of their Armored Vehicles destroyed. The ukrainian offensive came to a devastating halt in a matter of minutes. The world was quickly awakened to a new era of warfare advanced by the russians. It is clear the goods of tomorrow are no longer the ones we have faced and defeated in the past. Our National Defense strategy hinges on the ability of our forces to adapt to a security environment characterized by new threats from our strategic adversaries. We are committed to making the investments necessary to accelerate our innovation and technology that will help us stay ahead of the curve, especially our official intelligence. Advances in ai have the potential to change the character of warfare for generations to come. There will be a decisive advantage for many years. We have to get there first. Future wars will be fought not just in the land and in the sea or in the air, as they have for the last century, but also in outer space and cyberspace in unprecedented ways. Ai has the potential to transform warfare in all of these domains. It remains the department guidepost as we adapt forces to this environment. First andizes china russia second as we move into this era of great power competition. Beijing has made it abundantly clear that it intends to be the world leader in ai by 2030. Said they musts ensure the country must march in andranks in the era of ai critical and core ai technologies. They enable more costeffective and in thomas vehicles. The Chinese Liberation Army is moving to deploy them. While the u. S. Faces a mighty task to new ai enabled systems, china believes they can leapfrog technology and go straight to our generation. Beijing is investing in lowcost longrange, autonomous unmanned submarines, which it believes can be a costeffective counter to American Naval power. As we speak, the Chinese Government is already exporting some of the most advanced military aerial drones to the middle east and prepares to export its next generation when those come online. Weapons manufacturers are selling drones advertised as capable of full autonomy including the ability to conduct lethal, targeted strikes. Isre is ample evidence china deploying ai to strengthen its authoritarian group over its people. All signs point to the construction of a 21st century surveillance state to deny basic human rights in an unprecedented scale. Look no further than its use of surveillance to systematically repress more than one million muslim uighurs. Curb has all the power to industry and academia to support its efforts. Equally troubling are the multinational corporations inadvertently or tacitly providing the Technological Research behind chinas unethical use of ai. Cooperation with beijing has consequences, not just for democracy and human rights, but also for the strength of our partnerships abroad. If our allies and partners turn it5g platforms with china, will inject serious risk into our communication and intelligence sharing capabilities. Our collective security must not be diminished by a narrow sighted focus on economic opportunity. Russia has made its intentions equally clear, calling ai the future of humanity and describing technology as the key to supremacy in the world stage. Moscow has demonstrated its eagerness to use the latest free andies against open societies. We should not doubt their abilities on the battlefield either. I mentioned ukraine earlier and we expect russia to continue to deploy hightech ai capabilities in combat zones. The United States will offer a vision of ai that upholds American Values and protects our fundamental belief in liberty and human rights. Potential toss the create a force fit for our time. They will enhance from the back office to the front line. They will do this while being recognized as the world leader of military ethics by using ai in a lawful and ethical manner. We started the Artificial Intelligence center to integrate the power of ai across the many levels of the department of defense. Not only are we doing this in areas such as addictive maintenance, but also complex applications like joint war fighting. As ant approach ai panacea. To freesee it as a tool up resources and manpower, so war fighters and operators can focus on operating tasks. The ultimate goal is to get the war fighter into the crowd. Out to be able to pull the tactical edge. This will provide the wholesale commitment to modernizing war fighting systems and strengthening our partnership across the entire sector. We recognize these challenges and we are committed to addressing them. Our success is also contingent on timely funding from congress. The ongoing continuing resolution impacts our ability to accelerate Ai Development at the speed and scale necessary to stay ahead. Our adversaries are not slowing down in the United States cannot afford to either. Congress must understand that shortterm budget uncertainty has longterm strategic implications for our nations security. Is constantlygy changing, our commitment to ethics and duty and the law does not. This clearly demonstrates our ability to invest in, develop, and deploy systems that reduce risk for war fighters, well increasing combat effectiveness for the purpose of protecting the american people. We will develop this technology in ways to uphold our values and advanced security, peace, and stability at the same time. Some in the private sector have raised concerns about working with ai with the United States military. American corporations have a choice on whether they work with us. That is the virtue of our Free Enterprise system. Let me be clear, the question is not whether ai will be used by military around the world, it will be. The real chances whether question is whether we let authoritarian governments dominate ai and the battlefield or whether the industry, the military, and the partners can lead the world and responsible ai research and application. When america unleashes its collective genius of industry and government and academia, there is no one that can compete with us. I saw this firsthand in the gulf war. During world war ii, the titans of industry and hardworking patriots answered the call and transform detroit into the arsenal of democracy. After the sputnik launch, we rallied our best and brightest and took control of the space race. Will require similar ambition, vision, and commitment. You and i are no stranger to these sorts of challenges. America has risen to the challenge before and we must do so again, but we need your help. We need the full force of american intellect and ingenuity working with harmony across the public and private sectors. We need your leadership in your vision to ensure we maintain a Strategic Edge and we need forms and commissions to Pioneer Solutions to deter aggression and support are selective collective security. Thank you for your time. I look forward to our discussion. Thank you. [applause] thank you, secretary. It is clear that you and the department have in thinking about ai and what it offers to our military. [indiscernible] enabling our adversaries to not share our values. Pull fromd like to some of your comments and thank you for sharing with us. I would like to understand how the dod might be communicating with industry and challenging them to solve our most pressing National Security issues. Sec. Esper we are reaching out in a number of different ways, such as the traditional way of posting notices and things like , think tankms sessions, reaching out to academics directly, if you will. You and i were talking before hand. When i was secretary of the army, we split up the ai attack spent task force and i a whole day working with Industry Partners that showed up for the groundbreaking. We tried to reach out at a number of different levels. Out to thereach small innovators. That is where you tend to find the greatest ingenuity. We need to make sure we do it comprehensively. We need to tap the best and brightest from the different sectors and make sure we get to the end state quicker than the chinese and the russians. God bless you. I think those things we have had a lot of conversations. I think this is an important conversation to expand on. I understand you just mentioned the think tanks, but you have had the defense innovative board provide some recommended principles for the ethics, because it is not just speed, it is conforming to our values. What are your thoughts about the report and have you had a chance to think about where these principles might be implemented across departments . Sec. Esper as i said in my remarks, we have to conduct ourselves ethically and legally and morally. I was very pleased by what i saw in the report that just came out. It listed a set of principles. In terms of applying them to ai, it reaffirmed the principles we applied for many years. Im very pleased with the outcome of the report. I think it is very comprehensive. It balances out the number of different things. It talks about the need for continued exploration of these topics to make sure we get it right. This is one we cannot afford to get wrong. Things and one of the that im very concerned about in the commission has had a lot of dialogue about which is our Human Resources and how we are going to attract that. To are we going institutionalize that into the department . Have you considered how to do that in the future . Sec. Esper as with most things, talent is the key. You have to be able to recruit them, retain them, keep them busy. We have faced challenges in the past with cyber. The build the army cyber and federal recruiting. Governmenttry and and academia, we are all competing for the same handful of people because these are very talented, exceptional folks. They have great opportunities to work in the private sector for large sums of money and to do those types of things. We need to make sure we find different ways to attract to them because we cannot compete with the private sector, but we can offer you the chance to serve your country, to do things that are very interesting, maybe do things that are not legal in the private sector. [laughter] sec. Esper but exciting nonetheless. It is a tremendous part. We tend to bring together a great number of folks. What ive always enjoyed with my time, you work around a great group of people focused on something bigger than themselves. Time,ms cliche all the but this is the space where whoever gets there first is going to dominate. Set aside sputnik, but we largely got to the space first and we dominated the heavens for decades and we still do and we need to get their first in ai and maintain that. There will be continued investment. We need to make sure we leverage authorities given us by congress to make sure we bring in people, we can recruit them, we can use different technologies to bring them in midcareer and use different compensation packages and whatnot. We are looking for ways to get outside of our own bureaucratic methods to balance these things out. It is so good that you come from a Service Background into this position. I think one of the things that we are seeing as a commission is the change of war fighting. What do you see now that you are in this position coming from the army with all of the challenges in the ai battle . Now that you are in the secretary position, what you see that dod is going to face in the future . Sec. Esper i think i mentioned this in my remarks. Ai will not change the nature of war, but it will change the character of war, which is a major leap forward. Ai will transcend everything we do. It is going to be predictive maintenance, one of the areas in the army we are trying to get ai involved immediately. You can really use ai to optimize maintenance. You get higher reliability rate, fewer breakdowns, fewer breakdowns in the system. You talk about speed and decisionmaking. These days i was not in the army, i was in the infantry, but i know a little bit about that but if you are a tank platoon leader, you have people actually looking out on the battlefield and calling out the enemy targets. Enemy tanks. You have sensors. Imagine a world where you have ai integrated into all of your sensors and everything constantly scanning the horizon and within milliseconds, it is sorting out what is a civilian truck and what is an enemy combatant vehicle . One is the immediate threat in which one is not . It allows you so much greater reaction to the enemy. Whetherwhere you decide to pull the trigger or not. That is enabling quicker, faster traditions that allows you to be successful on the battlefield and that is just a war fighting application. Heck, you could do audits of the dod, which is never been done before. [laughter] sec. Esper we are getting there. Ai runs through everything we do and we have to make sure we get it, that is why we are moving as quickly as we can to the cloud. You mentioned during your preliminary notes about your interest and your Energy Behind ai and when you left for your confirmation hearing, you mentioned it is one of your highest priorities. You referred to the joint Artificial Intelligence commission committee. What are your thoughts for the future . Think your leadership will be able to go past the bureaucracy you are discussing into that future . Sec. Esper the acquisition system is not as efficient as it should be. We are trying to take advantage of authorities by congress, but it is slow. The biggest thing in terms of acquisition is the culture. We have to change the culture. You change the law, then you change the regulation, the practices. I think the services are moving at a different rate. We have to be able to cut through these things to make sure we get there quicker. We are in the race. We have to get to the instate quicker than the chinese can, quicker than the russians can. There are a few key technologies out there. Ai is one. , ai isth those systems still going to enable them in terms of how you employ them, maintain them, all of that, so that is why ai can be number one. You mentioned in your conversation here the issue of bringing the best and brightest. Have you seen some good collaboration between the government academia and industry . At least i seem to recall when i was working with you in the army, there were some activities, have you got activities to get people past that equation . Sec. Esper that is a good question. I mentioned before we kicked off the task force at carnegie , we had a number of different players involved. The army is deeply integrated in austin texas. They are doing a lot of work using cross functional teams to do that. I think all the teams have services to accelerate the process. We need to makes efficient sufficient investments. Of is in the final weeks building its budget for next year. Ai is one of those Critical Technologies we need to get to. It is not just the money, it is the people. I would put people number one. Then the people you need to do their jobs well. Andou mentioned the talent trying to recruit it, there is a pipeline that you went and experienced, not just in the army, but now in the broader context of dod, where science and technology, Early Research and investment is so important. What are your thoughts about the future and that investment and where do you think it might be needed in the department . Sec. Esper with regard to the personnel side . Yes. Sec. Esper one of the biggest things we were pushing in the army and im confident secretary mccarthy and chief of staff still are as talent management. We had to overhaul the personnel system because it was holding us back into many ways. That is just on the military side. There is the surveillance side, as well. We do a number of things really well, but when it comes to talent, we are still working in Industrial Age system. It is regulated by the executive branch, it is regulated by congress. It has a number of constraints, but weve got to be able to think outside the box. At the end of the day, it is the talent, it is not like we are in a noncompetitive environment. We are competing against industry. We are competing against think tanks. These folks are in high demand. Pool of a low density talent, at this point. You have an opportunity with this community, a mix of academic and civilian, etc. , is there anything that you would call for them to think about that would help you in your problemsolving . Sec. Esper you know, i think the more that you can help us point out what are the obstacles we are putting in our own way like we have enough challenges external to us what do we need to do better, what are you seeing that i dont see . I try to meet every month with groups of ceos for heads of associations and talk about what we can do better. How can we see ourselves better . Typically, what i hear is everything is ok, everything is great, everything is green, no problem, but when you reach out, you walk around, you talk to companies, you talk to entrepreneurs, you get a different story. We are trying to beat those down one at a time. If we make some adjustments to the system, we could really up our talent. I will take any problem and it ideas, these things are too important. Thank you. Remarks and your input have been excellent. Is there anything you would like to share beyond what ive asked you . Any thoughts you have for these folks here . Sec. Esper no. Well, yes. I will keep footstomping. Dod does not have a monopoly on great ideas were certainly in talent. So much of it is coming from the private sector, so we really need your help, and be conscious of what is happening out there in the world. As i like to tell our nato allies and european friends and i was just in brussels two weeks ago talking on this topic, i tell them dont write off what we are saying as the United States scaremongering, dont think we are overstating the problem. There are serious issues and we have been asleep at the switch for quite some time and we are finally waking up in the past couple years and the National Defense strategy has dod pointed in the right direction, saying we are now in an era of great power competition, china is our greatest strategic competitor, russia number two, and we need to be prepared for high intensity conflicts upon across five domains of warfare, no longer three. That is where we are headed and we need your help to get there. Thank you so much, very much. Please. Thank you. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2019] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] washington journal live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. Coming up this morning, we will talk about the impeachment process with molly reynolds, the brookings government study senior fellow. 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