[ applause ] good afternoon, everyone. So as we settle in, i often pick a word for the day, it kind of governs how i conduct myself often times and just my frame of mind. But today im going to pick an image of the day. If you look at our 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 were here. And of course the significance of this panel. Now this is a chinese book. For kindergarteners and circle, even if you dont speak chinese, circled are two letters, a. I. Kindergarten. Text book. A. I. Now, the senator talked about us tooling ourselves and getting ready from grade school to grad school. Now were talking about kindergarten or even prek if were going to be keep ahead and really stay number one when it comes to a. I. So i just wanted to start with this image. Because again, it really, for me, underscores the urgency of why this commission was formed and why you think and know its so important that we are here today. As see a. I. Has a broad mandate and working group three is charged with recommending concrete steps the government should take to build and maintain a. I. Workforce to address the 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 workforce, explore the roles of a. I. Workforce. Explore the roles of how the a. I. Workforce might and should play. And examine how the government might recruit, train, educate, manage and to the extent thats necessary retrain an a. I. Workforce. Hear our judgments thus far and you will affirm this if you read the report. National security agencies need a holistic workforce renovation for the a. I. Era. That includes extending a. I. Familiarity throughout organizations, infusing ethical training at every level, and spreading the use of modern software tools. Developing a. I. 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 a. I. Era. Now im a little hesitant because of all of the military presence here today but im going to make this next point. The department of defense and the Intelligence Community do not have effective ways to identify a. I. Relevant skill thats 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 talent. 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 a. I. Talent often due to riska verse Human Resource teams and commanders are civilian leader thats do not hold them sufficiently accountable. It is less clear if the same is holding true when it comes to pay scales. Fourth. Expanding a. I. Focused fellowship and Exchange Opportunities can give officials and Service Members access to Cutting Edge Technology and bring talent from our top a. I. Companies into federal service. These programs already exist and weve been talking about this today 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 complimentary fifth point is the military and National Security agencies struggle to compete for top a. I. Talent. The government needs to spend more effort showing that service is an opportunity to solve unique, exciting problems, and have a positive impact, it should try to reduce, if it exists, any despairagement of its workforce and better used path ways for recent graduates. Now theres two additional hard questions that we will explore with our panelists today. Since the american a. I. Talent pool, as you know, depends heavily on National International student an workers and our competitive hinders on retaining top minds from around the world, if we fail to do so its unclear how we will continue to compete and colleges and universities are under strain to keep pace with interest in Computer Science and a. I. In general. The number of Computer Science majors is increasing at ten times the rate of tenure track faculty. To begin this discussion weve asked chairman of the director, chairman and director of the mckenzie global institute. I try to use constants a lot. Former principle and Deputy Director of National Intelligence in gored. And gary bose future of work for sing u lairity universities working for five perspectives on these two questions primarily but not exclusively. How important is organizational structure for capitalizing on emerging Technology Challenge . And how should the National Security enterprise educate leaders and endusers who do not participate in the Development Process to deploy, use, and resource a. I. And solutions effectively and ethically. Miss gordon. Very, and thoughtfully. [ laughter ] no. Oh, im sorry. Yeah. So organizational construct is important. And second. How to deal with the existing workforce, you have to do it thoughtfully. Let me create a quick stat that i think begins the both before that and extends after it. I think of four things that we need to have in order to effectively integrate these technologies into our work flow. So the first is you have to have imperative. The organization has to be it must. If the organization doesnt believe that it must than 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 it will not be at speed. So for the Intelligence Community. You need to see the world as it is. Srz you need to understand what your mission is, not about seek recenty secretcy, its about knowing more sooner, and if you look at this world with its data and if youre the Intelligence Community and youre a leader than you must find a way to introduce the ability to handle data, like i said, from speed and from volume, but also to sense making differently in the technologies that are emergen the are ones you must have. You have to have imperative and csuite buy in, because if not you will fit it in to whats left over after youve done your real mission. So thats number one. Second thing, you need infrastructure. And earlier panels it. We all are in various stages of building that infrastructure, even those of us who have built infrastructure built it for humans to use and now were trying to figure out how machines use that infrastructure because data uses it differently than people use it. Algorithms use it differently than they must. Theres that information infrastructure but 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. Whats really important when you want to have data, you need to be able to integrate it with no cost. Dont have infrastructure that allows you to have barriers, youre not going to be able to get the curiosity thats going to get the organization to figure out what you can do and wont get the mission pull to pair with the technology push. So you got have abundant infrastructure. Organization, you need two types of organization. You need an organization to support your technologists. I would i would opine that we can attract anybody. In the Intelligence Community, our mission is so exciting, still, and such about possibility that people will come, but when they come in, they find theyre not supported with the same kinds of things they can find outside and at the five to tenyear mark, they cannot stand not being able to pursue their craft, 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 organizational model needs to change because technology is so embedded in what we do that the serial process of the technologists sitting someplace else and pumping capability into a work unit is not necessarily the model we need. And so i think your organizational models change. So, again, organizational construct for your technical humans and then new work units that allow the integration and the transfer of ideas and at speed to happen, and the last one is you need process. You need process revolution because even when a leader wants it 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 on the shoulders of despair because our contracting process or our information processes or t es are the rules that, so one of the thingses we need to do is think about what were putting in charge of designing new processes because the people we have now dont. As far as how you deal with a mixed workforce, you need to provide the opportunity to through those things i mentioned, for people who want to come to be able to come. And you have to recognize that some people arent going to be able to come, you need to be able to treat them honorably and offer them other solutions. And we do have a demographic problem that were going to have to address. The leadership, i think, is the most, the middle leadership, is probably our most urgent need because if i have middle leadership that does not understood this is fundamentally a technical world, they wont trust that the ideas coming up can actually affect the solution. And ill end it there. I appreciate that because it really underscores the culture, you know, what people find when they get there and right. Again, i appreciate those four points, primarily, four points, primarily everything that you said, i appreciate. Okay. Dr. Manyika. First of all, im delighted to be here, thank you for having me, and id like to applaud the report that the commissions put out. I think its very, very spoton. I know theres a lot more work still to come, but i really enjoyed seeing what was already in there. I also particularly like the fact that it put talent at the center and a talented workforce at the center of the a. I. Conversation. Thats actually absolutely critical. And in particular, when you think about the i think it was mentioned earlier in the discussions today, the triangle that is government, universities, and the private sector, thats a critical triangle when it comes to issues of talent. Now, what is it about the a. I. Talent specifically that we need to address and that we then need to see reflected in our organization . I would argue that there are basically four or five specific things that are worth understanding with regards to the a. I. Workforce talent question. And ill frame these as problems. The first problem we have is what ill call the too few problem which is we just dont have enough people with distinctive a. I. Capabilities in the government and you could even argue broadly in the economy. So we have a too few problem that we need to solve for somehow. Now, this is coupled with the second problem, which is a, what ill call the pipeline problem. If you look at the pipeline thats supposed to feed the talent needs, were going to need in a. I. , its woefully weak. Whether we look at k12, whether we look at universities, and whether we look at the places weve historically relied on for talent, which has been a good domestic pipeline, but also, International Students coming to the United States and other places. So the pipeline issues are actually enormous. I was quite struck by the fact that if you look at some of the data, the Personnel Management office and the federal agency put out that suggests that, for example, only something, like, i think 3 , of all i. T. Professionals are actually under the age 306. I think thats problematic. If we think about these pipeline questions. So the pipeline challenges is absolutely important. The third challenge id actually put out on the talented workforce is what ill call the, you know, we have many, many types needed problem. What do i mean by that . What i mean by that, i think often when we have this conversation about a talented workforce for a. I. , we need many different types. Were not just talking about the deep experts. We need those. We need many of those. We dont have enough of those and probably need to have, you know, ph. D. S or postops, whatever theyve had, but we also need people who are developers, who are going to not be doing the fundamental research but doing the Development Work to build applications. Were also going to need users who understand enough to be able to know how this fits into work flows and how they actually use these technologies. Were going to need leaders. You know, you can go on, in fact, the report i think actually does some work trying to categorize the different types that are needed, but i think its important to recognize theres a whole talent ecosystem here and value chain that has different kinds of capabilities and different kinds of roles. Some of those are easier to train and transition people to. Some are harder. Problem number four is what i might call the flow problem, and the flow problem is a challenge between the elements of the triangle, the flows dont work very well and, in fact, you can argue of the three legs of that triangle, government, universities, and private sector, right now, most of the flow is to the private sector. Uhhuh. Almost entirely. And the government is getting the short end of that stick. So how do we unstick and solve the flow problem is actually problematic, and by the way, this problem is also even real, even for universities. It used to be the case, i did my ph. D. In robotics about 23 years ago, tells you how old i am, but at that time, if youre looking for the best cuttingedge research in a. I. And robotics, youd look at a handful of universities. Thats where the best work is being done. Thats not true anymore. Much of the most amazing groundbreaking fundamental research is actually in the private sector. So, the flow problem here is a big challenge. Let me let me highlight one other last one, and i think i know in some of the conversations this has come up, and i might characterize this provocatively as a bit of a mission problem. Its a mission problem in the following sense, which is i think it used to be the case that you could imagine, you know, technologists and there was a time when people would imagine that if you wanted to do something good for the world, youd go into Public Service. Youd go into the military. Youd do things that were good for society. I think in the realm of technology, technologists now have a few more choices. So look at the young graduates who now see the private sector as one of the ways to change the world. Technology for good. So i think the arguably the monopoly that Public Service used to have is a mechanism for smart, talented people to go do Amazing Things in the world, has now many more other competitors, so i think theres more work that i think our National Security agencies, the government needs to do to do this. Now, what does this mean for organizations and the organizational structure, which is one of the questions you asked . And i think here theres some useful lessons from the private sector. I spend a fair amount of time in the private sector. One of the things you see nowadays is that there was a time when companies had a hard time understanding their technology is now fundamental to what they do. I think now everybodys come to realize that, in fact, every company is actually a technology company. It isnt something that those people in the corner room do but its actually fundamental to the whole enterprise and i think that mindset needs to come to our federal agencies that, in fact, this isnt just something that a few people are going to do over there in the corner. Its got to be a part of the part of the system. And this shows up in a few places. It should affect the processes, as you suggested, so i wont go into that. But we should also think about infrastructure, but let me take a particular twist to the infrastructure question. One of the things specific to a. I. , if you talk to any a. I. People, theyll tell you that, yes, you need ablazingmazingly people in the algorithms, you also need to compute, you also need tools, you also need data. Yep. You look at what is one of the reasons people go to the private sector for a. I. Is compute and data and tools. And so making sure that the organizations have the ability to give people access to the leading tools that, you know, the amount of compute that they need, the infrastructure that they need, to be able to even do the work in interesting ways, is another piece of the organizational change thats required. The other thing has to do with just ways of working and i think general shanahan pointed to this, talked about this in the morning, which is theres just often a mismatch whether its in terms of agility and pace that, you know, i think our defense agencies have typically worked historically that doesnt quite match the pace and agility in ways of working that these technologies actually now require, whether its the ability to iterate, the ability to test things, and so forth. All organizations have to be comfortable doing that. Let me end on at least a couple notes that relate to people. One of the things that at least weve learned with if you like the investment of technology in the private sector is that, in fact, theres a metric that often sometimes people use which is, you know, for every dollar investment in the technology you make, you need to invest another 20 in the change management. So its not just about buying the technology, theres all the change that actually needs to happen in the organization before organizations can fully capitalize this. I think this is maybe past what youre alluding to about the actual change that has to happen in our agencys work. Ill end on this note, at least for now, something we havent really talked about, which is Career Pathways. One of the things that actually helps a lot is when you actually have, you know, when you bring peep in people into organizations and theres actually Career Pathways where they can actually grow and succeed to the highest levels of those organization on the basis of unique skills of the building. Again, you see this in companies all the time. I think until we started to see chief Information Officers and chief Technology Officers sit at the csuite table and be able to effect organizations and people could see the Career Pathways, this was not taken seriously. It wasnt those kids in the basement doing technology stuff, but this was actually, people could actually see how they could progress in the organization. I think thats some of the fundamental thinking thats going to be required in our defense and National Security agencies. Takes you all the way to the topic of leadership, which you already spoke about. But those are at least some Lessons Learned from our experience. Thank you. And to round things out . Wonderful. So i want to just second or even third, thanks for inviting me and the marvelous work thats been done on the report to date. Im looking forward to seeing more of the outpresident. So, the university is a think tank based in Silicon Valley. Its neither about the sing larlar singularity, there are identity issues were working on. In the United States to accredited, you have to pour glue on your curriculum for two years and change our curriculum every two months. 300 brainiacs from around the world, experts on everything from Artificial Intelligence and ne nextgeneration medicine. Future of the work, future of the organization, future of learning. If i sort of distill some of these things down into the way i sort of read some of the questions we were asked, typically, the framing that i often get is, so, wait a minute, let me understand this. Are we trying to mostly put our efforts on upgrading humans or are we trying to change the systems including our organizati organizations . And my answer is, yes. You got to do both. You know, because the systems in an outsized manner disadvantage the opportunities to be able to help the right kind of skills and capabilities to flow to solve the right kind of problems and if you dont help people to continually have the tools and learning that they need, then youre going to have this continual mismatch. So ill focus first on the humans. What what i talk a lot about is that sort of the framing that i see is that were going through as big a shift as we did going from agricultural to industrial economies and were shifting what i call digital work economy and were doing it in a blindingly short period of time. So what that means for humans is theres a whole bunch of ways that were reacting to that and technology is, you know, potentially a great enabler, but its also increasing that pace. And so were shifting what i call a portfolio of work which is rather than one person one job, were having this much more ambiguous set of different constructs, different activities that people do. Parents ask me all the time, will my kid get a real job . The answer is that working at a day job, driving for uber at night, working on a startup with your friends simultaneously is a response to an exponentially changing world. Head strategy. How do you think about how you then leverage that kind of unbundling of work and being able to channel human energies to be able to solve the problems that you want . So, so thats the first opportunity i think is to think in terms of as were trying to help humans to be able to upgrade themselves, there are macroissues going on with the workforce that we can actually leverage, can actually take advantage of because it creates opportunity if we change our organizations in the right way. And its one of those rare situations where the technology can actually be helpful if we if we use it correctly. I talk about half a dozen a. I. Superpowers, not that as talked about china and russia and others but more what are the superpowers that actually the technology can help us to have so we can be supported in solving the problems of tomorrow . And then to the organization issues. So in the same way that were seeing soo t many of the consts around the way humans work changing, the organization, itself, is a construct thats left over. I mean, literally the whole idea of a corporate hierarchy, that sort of thing, we trace back all the way to alexander the great and that shift from agricultural to industrial model, we created this thing called the organization, and i use the analogy of a box. Theres theres abundance outside the box, and theres scarcity inside the box. Theres a corm rporate hierarch slots, we want to stick people in the slots. We did that as a rational response needing to be able to build factories and channel the energies of humans when the best Communications Technology was a carrier pigeon. Well, now when we got all these digital distraction devices that we all carry around, can communicate instan ttaneously around the world. Basically, the idea is to shift to the if you want a picture of it, to shift to a model of a network. The more that you unbundle the organization, soften the walls of the organization, this is especially germane to agencies, apprenticeships, mentorships, leveraging crowdsourcing platforms, having people come through for tours of duty, anything that allows you to be able to take advantage of the resources of the skill sets of people that can actually help to solve these problems, you can open up that box, turn it into a better advantage you have. The opportunity i push for i have nine courses on Linkedin Learning where i talk about these issues. What i say is it isnt any more about change management. Its about managing change. A mentality, there was a current state and future state and do the delta between them and then youre done. Whats the difference between them . Okay. Yeah. We got our plan. Its only managing change. We cant see any point at which exponential change is going to slow down. As a matter of fact, one of our favorite phrases at singularity university, today is probably the slowest day of the rest of your life. Youre going to look back in ten years and say, you know, i remember when you kids didnt embed chips in your head, you werent printing your clothes in your closet, that sort of thing. We can only see its going to increase. The idea that an organization actually has some future static state, we dont see that. And so the processes that you node need to be able to help people continually adapt and especially as we think of with the lendss a. I. And technologies, them themselves, that are not going to slow down, only going to increase, we need a bigger boat. So now that my head hurts because, no, because im listening to the three of you and if there is a very simple refrain that i could put forth is that you are demanding from us or asking us, asking these organizations, government, academ academia, and the like, to do some things in ways that were not organically, you know, poised or to do because, again, youre throwing out the entire model which has built this very framework and youre saying Going Forward there might be if youre not saying that, please counter that the model Going Forward that will enable all of the things that, you know, that we speak of and the things that are necessary for National Security, that the way we went about it up until now is not the way thats going to get us to nirvana. So i think thats i think thats right and not scary. Okay. Because im scared. No, no, so i would be scared if i thought the future world was for the technology and the humans to selforganize. I think i think one of the difficulties of the last 20 years when the communications instead of being pony express days when there was a lot of expenses, you need that information to be received, had value, now it is infinitely available and yet humans are still trying to process it, were trying to let even our private sector try and figure out where we ought to go, which technology, so heres what i think. You need government, but government cant act in this world to provide the functions that government does in the same way it did. I loved your quotation on change. I have a different one, and that is i hate change, but i love relevance more. Okay. Right . So, so to me, whats the function of government, whats the function of National Security, you must affect it but cannot affect it the way that we have. It just isnt working. Its ripping at the seams. Its its too slow. Its not expansive again, you dont have the people right. And i know youre getting there. Right. No, you still do have the people. Right. But people without imperative are going to have hard time delivering the outcome that we need. And imperative just to prosecute a technology or take it as far as it can go has had the limitations to it. Look at Mark Zuckerberg sitting in front of congress. Oh, my kbgod, im responsible. When he started, he didnt understand the Volume Technology has so he did it. The reason im not concerned that if organizations understand what their purpose is but let go of the modality, and develop new craft, as youre articulating, i think we can get there, but if we either think its willynilly or ive got to hold on to the ways that ive deone it in the past, those two are antithetical to the kind of progress we need which is why some people look at china and say, well, thats attractive, we ought to lock it down, that isnt america. Right . That isnt going to yield it. Its some combination of those two things but its not either or. So how do you im sorry, im going to get to you. How do you because you worked in government i did. For more than a year or two. Is since i was 20. Right. How in the world do we get to your nirvana. Im serious. You got sticky floors and very obvious ceilings that would potentially prevent us from getting the what are the outlines, what are the one, two, and three things that will get us, you know, getting rid of that ceiling and unsticking us from that floor . I think leadership youre going back you cannot convince me that leadership doesnt matter. It does. It sets the direction, the course and the parameters and can make some of the rules. From a government perspective, i think one of our responsibilities is to have a little bit longer horizon and deeper pocketbooks so i am not going to endorse senator schumers proposal, but i like it because i think thats a very foundational thing that you need to do. You need more. And the other thing is, we need to create a much more semipermeable membrane between the public and the private sector. For talent, for processes, for ideas, but it cant just be one way. The private sector has got to realize that their solutions have to work at scale. And so leadership, semipermeable membrane and reinvestment in the foundation that will allow us to have the basis for application Going Forward. Dr. Manyika . Yeah, i guess im a little more optimistic than the questions suggest for the following reasons. So sorry, im from the south. No well, im optimistic for the following reasons. Theres still a call to action at the end of it. The reason for optimism, i see theres lots of instances of the kind of change and innovation were talking about. Look at what the the Defense Department innovation board has recommended. Look at whats in this report. Look at what various leaders are doing. Look at the fellows programs that have started to emerge that, you know, provide mechanisms to move back and forth between industry and the government. So you got lots of these examples. So thats good. Thats look at some of the leaders who have emerged and stepped up, right, general shanahan and others. I had the pleasure for the last year to work closely, i was cochairing with admiral bill mcraven at task force on National Security innovation. So you got these leaders who are emerging and these practices. I think the challenge is w twofold. Its too small, too incremental and not moving quickly enough. And i think while in the past we might have been able to live with that and, you know, slowly adapt and change over time, this time is a little bit different. Partly because so, you know, i like numbers, so if you think about, take the investment question, we now have a competitor called china whos at scale, just some fun numbers on this. If you looked at the rate at which the u. S. Was investing in basic research that feeds a lot of these innovation, the peak of that was in 1964 when we were spending 2 of gdp. Basic science research. Now we sort of sustained that for a while. And then its dropped to date about. 66 of gdp. Now, look at the other side of the trajectory that chinas on. At the rate of which theyre investing, their own path in about a decade, if they keep up the rate of investment spending, theyll be spending about 2. 5 of their gdp at a time when by all expectations, their economy will be about the size of our economy, so the scale and pace were talking about requires that we move much faster, so what i love all the fledglings and innovations and the calls to action and the things that are in place, they just need to do them bigger and faster. Uhhuh. Thats the challenge. Need a bigger boat. You hinted to it because, again, you cant not in terms of a particularly budgetary allocation to achieve this. You cannot ignore the political dynamic. Well, thats the reason why i think its important that we we find a way to bring the public along. Okay. Right . Because we have to get the support. I mean, we, you know, no one can just its a democracy. No one can just rewrite the budgets any way we want, right . Thats the beauty of this country. But we have to bring the public along to understand that this is actually quite important and quite foundational and quite fundamental to make these kinds of changes. Mr. Chairman . So, there are a couple things. First off, i would im the last person to suggest complacency in terms of the nimbleness of Government Agencies, but you have to know that out in industry, this is a work in progress. I mean, we got all these poster children in Silicon Valley that talk about being very nimble companies and i spend time with boards of directors and ceos who are asking exactly the same challenges. I mean, they got all the same problems. Yep. Its typically the, you know, the innovators dilemma or incumbents dilemma so theyre all trying to focus on the same issues, but what you find is theres some consistency. So the first is courageous leaders, so there have to be some people that are setting the north star. Second is that they focus on the managers because thats the linchpin, and especially midmanagement. Theyre the ones who are going to decide whether or not your Organization Lives or dies. Theyre going to manage all the information going up and all the power going down and they have to be training new model. And i know this sounds a little random, but if you want a great book on the subject, read moonshots and education by our friend, and what she says in teaching, were so and dont get me started on education because ill go off on that one for a long time, although i have no moral standing because i never actually went to college. What she says is the old model is the sage on the stage and we need to move to the guide on the side. And thats exactly the model for that adaptive manager is how you help them to think of themselves not as the up thone that is controlling the work of their employees, its the one whos engabe enabling them to dynamically bind around problems. The third these organizations focus on is alignment, once you got that path or the direction youre going, whats the role of every individual in being able to enable that change . A an ongoing process of change. So, so thats part of my answer is dont industry doesnt have this perfect, but theyve got some processes that theyre going through where theyre trying to be continually build adaptive organizations that can be learned from. But, gary, industry can get this wrong for these issues, for defense, National Security, we cant get it wrong. Environment where the risks are higher, yes, so, yes, theres a dynamic tension as to what kind of Risk Management processes youre going to put in place. And it isnt just that youre managing your citizens money, its also that youre managing their ability to have a sew ccu country. Theres no shrinking violets on this panel. If you have any questions, please raise your hands and well get the mic to you. A lot of what we are speaking in terms of working group 3, the questions i was worried during the first part of the day, im like, i dont even know what were going to speak about now because a lot of the questions were put forth. But if you want to get more granular or reask the question, stated in a different way, nows your opportunity to do so. So if, by show of hands, please help me because i dont know how many questions i have, so by show of hands, if you will care to weigh into this conversation, please do so at this time. Weve got one taker. If you could briefly state who you are, where youre from and your question. Yes, im russell shilling, the American Psychological association and a former dartmouth p. M. And owner. One of the things that im hearing you say when you discuss what the Workforce Needs to look like for innovation and a. I. , i still hear mostly computer scientists and technologists. Right. And, again, i know my comrades in the d. O. D. Since i served there for 22 years and so i just wanted your to expand on that about the diversity of talent you need on an a. I. What an a. I. Professional actually is. In your world. All right. Why dont you start all right. No fighting amongst this group. In a goodnatured way. First off, theres Research Going back to the 1950s when we shifted to, from a war footing to a consumer economy that was really good work on sort of understanding human skills. And i like the framing, the father of dictionary occupational titles who was sort of honorary coal mine. He basically said there are these things called knowledges and things called Transferable Skills so we got this unfortunately, today, we call them hard skills and soft skills. Really, these are skills anchored or rooted in a particular arena and skills that are usable in a range of different situations that are transferable. What weve done, we get so overindexed on the specific knowledges that we believe are needed at a particular period of time to be able to train people to be able to solve certain kinds of problems. Our Education Systems are geared toward that. The way that were churning out people who have degreed is geared toward that. Theres all these other skills that will allow people to be adaptive and collaborative and so on, were not training for those. The shelf life of information is decaying rapidly. And so instead, what i push people to think of is, well, whats the rate whats the portfolio of skills that we need . And the truth is, theres always going to be these, you know, really deep knowledges that will continually change to be able to actually be, you know, the equivalent of the car mechanic but a lot of people dont know how to drive the car and got to have a range of different perspectives to be able to solve problems with dynamic teams. I mean, thats just its really clear. I mean, google did this analysis. They found theres only two actual characteristics of highperformance teams. Psychological safety, so youve got a bunch of people that all can brainstorm together and psychological diversity. So it has to be a lot of the skills that we think of as being softer. It has to be youve got people trained in psychology and a range of different liberal arts backgrounds because thats the only way that youre going to solve the problem. But in Silicon Valley, we havent gotten it right at all. We heavily overindex on the Technical Skills and we are ignoring many of the others that are required to be able to solve problems dynamically. Doctor . Yeah, to two things to agree with that, one of the things that the report that was put out, does a nice job of articulating the seven or eight different kinds of capabilities and you look at that, the majority of them are not Computer Science. So thats one point. The other point i think youre starting to see in the a. I. Community recognizing this, itself. So, for example, if you look at ive been involved in setting up of whats now one of the largest academic institutions, human center a. I. Institute, and by design that institute is a multidisciplinary institute. If you look at it in terms of whats going on there, yes, you have computer scientists or robotists but also got people from law, people from philosophy, in fact, the codirectors of the institute, one is a computer scientist. The other is a philosopher. So i think youre starting to see this recognition that this takes multiple skills and capabilities. So i think we need we do need to move away from this a. I. Skills topic as being primarily about Computer Science. It isnt. Just to take a twist on that, i think this is a technical world. I think Everyone Needs to be i dont care your discipline, you need to be comfortable with technology. You may not be the person whos developing it, but if you are not a comfortable data swimmer, youre not comfortable with technology, youre going to have a hard time. Second is as these technologies become more ubiquitous, the differentiator is going to be Critical Thinking. The way i characterize it, oh, you wanted to use it. And so both the technologists have got to have in their head use and the decisionmakers have to have that responsibility of use. So we take secretary kissingers comments, if you believe you have responsibility for use, you will get to the issue of ethic because nothing changed about the responsibility of the organization or the human just because you introduced a technology. Right. I think you said application and interpretation right. Right. So i just think about, you have to understand the responsibility of use. So to me, thats the Critical Thinking piece. So i actually think youre going to see a resurgence of the liberal Arts Education as the technology permeates even more broadly than it has now because thats going to be what is going to make the difference in terms of progress. I keep going back and forgive me for being fixated, its kind of a sudden thing, too, to be honest with you, is, again, youre speaking about, you know, being disruptive within both public and private sectors and affirmingthose sectors will, again, be more diverse in a number of ways particularly when it relates to disciplines but that, again, is not natural. Its not comfortable. Its not easy to manage. And especially in the government where historically, our promise is stability of employment. Right. Right . You said that out loud . Yeah. And that has given us some of the greatest accomplishments of free societies because of that, but it isnt necessarily the model that we need Going Forward. So im very proud to have served in the Intelligence Community for almost four years. When i talk to young people now, i say, its the best first five to ten years of your career. It it is. Understand the use case, you will have more responsibility early, but at five to ten years, i want you to move. I dont how do we make that sexy . No, i think we totally can. Think theres partnerships we talked about in the field you can imagine careers differently. 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. So you and theyre still my employee. You said i think the most key word. So really i think one of the greatest places you have to stand is purpose. So when i was a teenager, my father was a recovering minister. Recovering minister. Recovering minister who had been laid off from work, written out of the budget and helped other ministers who were being laid off and wrote a pamphlet that turned into a book, what color is your parachute . One of the reasons i didnt go to college, i fell into the family business. He had a construct. He sort of broke down jobs and also the characteristics of us as humans into sort of seven different characteristics including our skills and knowledges, but center of the target was purpose. And so what youre finding right now when the heads of companies and boards of directors, young people wont come work for my company, kids are asking them, what is the purpose, what is the purpose of your organization . You got purpose nailed in the Public Sector so that i think is your superpower. Thats the place you start from is is it is about that process of helping them to onboard, even if its the first five to ten years or later five to ten years. Then it comes back around, right. Exactly. You dont have to make that up. Thats the north star to bring the talent in. It has to be clearer of how they wan actually help to move the needle. So the Public Sector needs to be a better messenger. A b also, whats really clear, i mean, one example that i think is very indicative is code for america. You know, jen palcko, former cto, the whole model of getting a bunch of innovators making a problem clear. This is whey taat i talk about future of work, we have to become more problem centric. Agencies become very process centric and forget what the problem was they were trying to solve, so more problem centric you become b, the more you can carve out the problem to solve. Its clear, you can have an impact on it. The code for america basically through a team at the state of california which suddenly made marijuana legal, changing the records of 50,000 people who had convictions on their records and wiping them out automatically. And that was only done because you brought a bunch of these innovators in to solve that problem. Okay. Any questions . One to my right. Hi. Afternoon. My name is jim perkins and im going to speak under my Army Reservist hat. The question here about Talent Management, in particular, Talent Management reform, one of you mentioned that theres both a tech problem, theres data, and then theres recruiting talent. I would like to push on what ms. Gordon had sort of mentioned about the off ramp, what all of you refer to as the frozen middle and affectionately providing a im so sorry. I just i teed it up and i sort of blanked on it. But the ability to retain the right talent in there because many of the people that you have with these skills are leaving out of frustration. Even if you have the technology and the data, the lack of implementation is just killing them. Right. So i think you and i both said it, we just need to tackle those problems, so theres just the Demographic Group of not people who want to participate but people who are just waiting until their tenure is up. We need to help that, and thats a difficult thing to say, but its something that were going to need to. The second is if we dont create the environment where the talent we bring can thrive, the promise wont have been enough. Its like and it used to be that we were the only the government was the only place where some of these really tough problems were being attacked. And so if you wanted to do mathematics or if you wanted to work with a 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, so we have to fix that. So when i talk about that whole stack of infrastructure, and process, it is to get at that problem. Now, that is a big old honking problem for us which is why i think the partnership in 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. I think the National Security tent is much bigger than government institutions. Thats one of the ways i think we can address the numeric problems of supply and demand. And the talent problem of keeping people engaged in what i think the nation really needs without having them have to wait until we solve the bureaucratic issues of government structures as they exist today. So if you just took the small step of saying, im going to free that up and not worry about the Sole Source Justification behind sending person a to company b, that is a way for us to jumpstart this. And i think the companies would love it, too, because it kind of inoculates their people in terms of the issues of scale and the issue of regulation, the issues of security, that are important nationally as well. So thats what i would do yours. Thank you. I thought i saw another hand back here. Did i . Way in the back. And the other person, there was somebody i thought somebody if he can approach, whoever has the mic on this side, approach them, so we can cut o ut a few seconds. Yes, maam. Hi. Im anna mitchell. I work at schmidt futures as a product manager. I just graduated from stanfords Computer Science department, and i talked to a lot of people who are deciding about their first jobs out of college. A lot of people who are specializing in a. I. And one of the things i just noticed over and over again is that its so hard to turn down a super highpaying job from the private sector with stock options, bonuses. Its very hard to do that as a new graduate. So what are your most concrete proposals for solving this pay gap beyond only tours of duty but, like, recruiting people to government for the long term. We talked about that a bit in the report. Do you have a well, what i a couple things. One of the things that has been proposed in various circles is the idea that, in fact, when people are taking on jobs, mission and Public Service in mind and are based on those foundational technologies such as people like yourselves who graduated from these places, why wouldnt the federal government write off their loans . You know, sure, the government wont pay them what google will pay them, why not underwrite the cost ofvested in these foundational technologies . Theres other ways other than that bonus check or stock option thats meaningful, will have a financial impact. I think so. Any other so a couple things. So the reason that things like tours of duty are the things you initially default the idea that theres a period of timing and focusing on specific problem but then go and make the bigger paycheck in industry is simply, its risk reduction. Right . So especially youve got big Student Loans then youre thinking about, you know, how are you going to pay all that off, then with a longterm arc of your career. So, theres several things. The first is to help just being a broken record on this but up the volume on purpose. We just know from 50 years year work with parachute, if you give people two jobs and one pays pretty well but its lacking the purpose that they feel, the reason theyre on the planet, and another job that pays less but it actually has that purpose baked in, if you can factor out some of the circumstantial issues like the fact you have heavy Student Loans, people will choose door number 2 over and over again depending upon their risk profile. So you just got to amp up the purpose part then youve got to carve out the problem so that its very clear and then theres probably a Public Private partnership in between where actually they can be partially on loan to be able to solve problems over the longer term that is not binary. These are all the, you know, softening the walls of the organization kinds of m mentalties. We have Retention Bonuses and hiring bonuses and all those sorts of things. What we most could do is make it faster. If i could offer you if i could give someone the offer at the same time they got it from the private sector, not deferred by 16 months got it. Yeah. Thats real. No, i do yeah, yeah. Thats real. Last question from the audience. I couldnt decide how im so sorry about that. John, im part of the u. S. Air force, m. I. T. , a. I. Accelerator in cambridgcambridg. I just came out of a tour in industry with amazon as part of the first cohort to kind of go through their Machine Learning university and what was huge to me was this idea of the democratization of a. I. And a lot of these Tech Companies have developed these internal to kind of upscale their force. So, you know, we talk about questions on the flow problem, the many types and the pipeline problem, what do you see as the role for industry and for academia and the ffrdcs like lincoln laboratory, Oakridge National laboratory, on helping to upscale the force to kind of create this organic capability within the d. O. D. . Thank you. Quick answer. So, great, so first off, i just i dont want to be word police, im always worried about words like upscale and rescale because those sound like the industrial processes were trying to leave behind. Id much rather its actually a person whos trying to upgrade their own capabilities, but the i think that theres, again, i go back to the sort of Public Private interaction process. Theres no reason that those organizations, those private companies that have so many of these resources couldnt basically construct boot camps where Government Agencies can be continually identifying the skill set 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 then get trained very, very rapidly. Donctor. Tourism duty such as one you just did, i think we can do that at much larger scale. People at defense agencies, National Security agencies, spending time at companies. Number two, i think the Government Agencies do a poor job of creating the sense of excitement for the kind of work that people can do in government. Anybody who wanted to do Machine Learning on weather or on climate systems, the government has better data on that than anybody. So how doou attract people to come work on the kinds of problems where the defense agencies and the government has better assets to offer to people who are a. I. People interested in those problems . Thats right. Ill stand with your answers. Okay. Final final word. Time is up. I know, im so sorry, i had i wanted forgive me. Oneword answer from each of you about what youre most excited about for an a. I. Future. We got negative 20 seconds. Oneword answer. Solve the hardest problems in the world. Thats more than one word. Maximizing human potential. Okay. Curiosity enablement. Thank you very much. Please [ applause ] were going to take a tenminute break then my final commissioner will continue to make will come up, introduce our next speaker. Stay in your seats. Okay. Forget that. No break. If everyone could please stay in your seats. Thank you. If i could get your attention. Thank you. All right. Well, i guess he needs no introduction. My distinguished pleasure to introduce the 27th secretary of defense, dr. Mark esper. Thank you so much for your attention. [ applause ] everybody settle down, we still have conversations going on, huh . Must be some good issues out there. Good afternoon. Thank you, katharina, for that introduction. The work this commission is doing in bringing together academia, defense, and business, is critically important. Im going to scooch around here because i cant see over here. So thank you for inviting me to speak today. Its really great to be here. The world around us is changing at a pace faster than ever before. New technologies are emerging that are fundamentally altering how we think about plan and prepare for war. 28 years ago i saw firsthand the transformative power of technology during operation desert storm. As some of you know, i was a young infantry officer with the 101st airborne division. I took part in what became the deepest air assault into Enemy Territory at that point in history and in only 96 hours, the 101st moved 3 brigades over 350 miles cutting off the republican guard. The gulf war was the proving ground for a new generation of military weapons and equipment from laserguided stealth bombs to aircraft and widespread use of gps. Liberating kuwait in a matter of days American Forces demonstrated our mafltry of the digital revolution and rendered what was then cuttingedge so h soviet technology obsolete. Our adversaries took note and since then theyve been trying to catch up. Five years ago they surprised the world with how far theyd come. On july 11th, 2014, Ukrainian Forces assembled about 5 miles from the rush border in southeastern ukraine. Coming off recent successes against russianbacked forces, ukrainian battalions were eagerly preparing a final push to the border. Suddenly, they noticed the hum of russian uavs overhead. Followed by Cyber Attacks against their command, control, and communications systems. Immediately after a flurry of Russian Artillery rained down on them. The whole episode lasted just a few months but inflicted tremendous damage. Dozens of soldiers were killed. Hundreds more were wounded. Most of their Armored Vehicles were destroyed. The ukrainian offensive came to a devastating halt. All in a matter of minutes. The world was quickly awakened to a new era of warfare advanced by the russians. Its clear the threats of tomorrow are no longer the ones we have faced and defeated in the past. That is why 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. Were committed to making the investments necessary to accelerate our innovation and technologies that will help us stay ahead of the curve, especially Artificial Intelligence. Advances in a. I. Have the potential to change the character of warfare for generations to come. Whichever nation harnesses a. I. Which will have a decisive a advantage on the battlefield for many, many years. We have to get there first. Future wars will not be fought just on the land and in the sea as they have for thousands of years or in the air as they have for the past century but also in outer space and cyberspace. In unprecedent eed ways. A. I. Has the potential to transform warfare in all of these domains. The nds remains the departments guidepost as we adapt the force to this new environment. The nds prioritizes china first and russia second as we transition into this era of great power competition. Beijing has made it abundantly clear that it intends to be the world leader in a. I. By 2030. President xi has said that china must, quote, ensure their country marches in the front ranks when it comes to Theoretical Research in this important area of a. I. And occupies the high ground in critical and core a. I. Technologies. For instance, improvements in a. I. Enable more capable and costeffective autonomous vehicles. The Chinese Peoples Liberation Army is moving aggressively to deploy them across many warfighting domains. While the u. S. Faces a mighty task in transitioning the worlds most advanced military to new a. Impi. Enabled systems china believes it can leapfrog our Current Technology and go straight to the next generation. In addition to developing conventional systems, for example, beijing is investing if lowcost, longrange, autonomous and 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 as it prepares to export its nextgeneration stealth uavs when those come online. In addition, chinese weapons manufacturers are selling drones advertised as capable of full autonomy including the ability to conduct lethal, targeted strikes. Theres also ample evidence that chinas developing and deploying a. I. To strengthen its authoritarian grip over its people. All signs point to the construction of a 21st century surveillance state designed to censor speech and deny basic human rights on an unpress deced scale. Look no further than its use of surveillance to systemically repress more than a more muslim uighurs. Beijing has all the power and tools it needs to coerce chinese industry and academia into supporting its governmentled efforts. Equally troubling are outside firms or multinational corporations that are inadvertently or tacitly providing the research or Technology Behind chinas unethical use of a. I. Cooperation with beijing has consequences not just for democracy and human rights but also for the strength of our partnerships abroad. If allies or partners turn to chinas 5g platform, freror example, it will our collective security must not be diminished by a short and narrowsighted focus on economic opportunity. Russia has made its intentions equally clear. Calling a. I. The future of humanity and describing the technology as the key to supremacy on the world stage. Moscow has already demonstrated its eagerness to use the latest technologies against democratic nations in the ideals of free and open societies. We shouldnt doubt their abilities on the battlefield, either. I mentioned the ukraine example earlier. We expect russia to continue to deploy increasingly hightech a. I. Capabilities in current and future combat zones. The United States, on the other hand, will offer a vision of a. I. That upholds American Values and protects our fundamental belief in liberty and human rights. We will harness the potential of a. I. To create a force fit for our time. By believe theres tremendous opportunity to enhance a wide range of the departments capabilities from the back office to the front line. And we will do this while being recognized as the world leader in military ethics by developing principles for using a. I. In a lawful and ethical manner. In line with the nds, we stood up the joint Artificial Intelligence center, the j. A. K. E. Its role is to integrate the power of a. I. Across the many levels of the department of defense. Not only are we doing this in areas such as Predictive Maintenance and Cyber Defense but also with more complex applications like joint warfighting. We dont approach a. I. Or any technology, for that matter, as a panacea. We also see it as a tool to free up valuable resources and manpower so our war fighters and operators can focus on higher priority tasks in a more efficient and more effective manner. Our ultimate goal is to get the war fighter into the cloud. We must be able to pull our vast streams of data and deliver a. I. Capability out to the tactical edge. This will require the wholesale commitment to modernizing our warfighting systems, cultivating a premier workforce, and strengthening our partnership across the entire sector. We recognize these challenges and were committed to addressing them. Are committed them. Our success is also contingent upon predictable and timely funding from congress. The ongoing continuing resolution harms military readiness and impacts our ability to accelerate military development at the speed and scale necessary to stay ahead. Our adversaries are not slowing down, and the United States cannot afford to either. Congress must understand that short term budget uncertainty has long term stra tetegic implications for our nation as security. While technology is constantly changing our commitment to law, ethics, and duty does not. The department demonstrates our ability to invest in, develop, and deploy systems that reduce risk to our war fighters while increasing our combat effectiveness for the ultimate purpose of protecting the security of the american people. We will ensure we develop technology in ways to uphold our values. Some in the private sector have raised concerns about working on a. I. With the United States military. Unlike some parts of the world, american corporations have a choice in who they work with. That is the virtue of our Free Enterprise system. But let me be clear. The question is not whether a. I. Will be used by militaries around the world. It will be. The real question is whether we let authoritarian governments dominate a. I. And by extension the battlefield or whether industry, the United States military, and our partners can Work Together to lead the world in responsible a. I. Research and application. When america unleashes its collective genius of industry, government, and academia, there is no one that can compete with us. I saw this first hand in the gulf war and our history is rife with other examples. During world war ii the titans of industry and hardworking patriots answered the call and transformed detroit into the arsenal of democracy. We created darr pa and nasa and took control of the space race. Mastering a. I. Will require similar. We must rise to the task again but we need your help. We need the full force of american intellect and ingenuity working in harmony across the public and private sectors. We need your leadership and your vision to ensure we maintain a Strategic Edge and we need forms and conditions such as these to Pioneer Solutions that will provide for our collective security. Thank you for your time, and i look forward to our discussion. Thank you. Thank you secretary for the thoughtful remarks. Its clear you and the department have been thinking about a. I. And what it offers to our military, also how it could be enabling our adversaries who may not share our values for new and different facts. So, i would like to pull upon some of your comments, and thank you so much 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. Well, were reaching out in a number of different ways, everything from the traditional way of posting notices and rfps and things like that to forums, to fora, to think tank sessions, to reaching out to academics directly if you will. You and i were talking beforehand. When i was secretary, i spent a whole day working with researchers and Industry Partners that showed up for the ground break. Were trying to reach out at a number of different levels. We need to reach out with regard to industry not just to the big players on the block but all the way down to the small innovators. Thats where you find your greatest innovation and ingenuity. Weve got to tap the best and brightest from across the country from all those different sectors and make sure we can get to the end state quicker than the chinese and russians can. God bless you. I think those things are we have had a lot of conversation about speed, and i think this is an important conversation to expand on. And i understand you just mentioned the think tanks that youve had, the defense innovative board just come in and provide recommended prince prime ministers for the ethics because its not just speed. Its conforming to our values as society. What are your thoughts about the report and have you had a chance to think about where the principles might be implemented across the department. Sure. As i said, we have to always conduct ourselves ethically and legally and morally. And i was very pleased by what i saw in the report. It just came out last week and listed a set of principles. In terms of applying to a. I. , it reaffirmed the same principles weve applied to other systems weve been using for many, many years. Im very pleased with the outcome for the report. I think its very comprehensivemecomprehensive. It balances out a 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. Yes. And one of the things that im very concerned about and the commission has had a lot of dialogue about which is our Human Resources and how are we going to attract that talent and institutionalize it into the department. Have you had a chance to think about those concerns and what you might be able to do to attract the right type of talent to be able to do this business in the future . Yeah, i would say that with most things talent is the key. Its making sure youre able to access the best and the brightest. Youve got to be able to recruit them and retain them and keep them happy and busy. And weve faced the same challenge over the past many years with cyber. I saw this not just from the government perspective where the army built the army cyber. But from the private sector, we seem to all we all being industry and government and academia, all competing for the same handful of people because these are talented exceptional folks. And they have great opportunities to work in the private sector for large sums of money and do those types of things. So, what we have to do is make sure we find different ways to attract them because we cannot compete with the private sector when it comes to compensation. But we can offer you the chance to serve your country, do things that are interested, maybe do things that arent legal in the private sector but exciting nonetheless. But it is a tremendous part. We tend to bring together a great deal of folks. And what ive always joyed with my time in service whether its in the military or in dod, you work around a great group of people who are focused on something bigger than themselves, bigger than the bottom line and you get committed to that. It seems cliche all the time but this is the space race. Whoever gets there first is going to dominate. We got to set aside sputnik, we largely got to space first with what you needed and we dominated the heavens for decades and still do. And we need to get there first on a. I. And maintain that lead. So, its going to be continued investment. So, what were trying to do now is make sure we leverage authorities that were given to us by congress to make sure we can bring in people, we can recruit them, we can use different techniques to bring them in midcareer, bring them in with different compensation packages and whatnot. So, were looking for ways to get outside of our own bureaucratic methods to make sure we can balance these things out. Super. Its so good that you come from a Service Background and roll up into this position. I think one of the things that were seeing as a commission is the change of war fighting. And what do you see now that youre in this position coming from the army with all of its challenges and the a. I. Battle . Now that youre in the secretarys position, what do you see that d. O. D. Is going to face in the future thats different with the way a. I. Will implement . Well, i think i mentioned this in my remarks. A. I. Wont change the nature of war, but itll change the character of war which is a major leap forward if it can happen. And a. I. Will transcend everything we do. Its not just war fighting but its going to be Predictive Maintenance which is one of the areas were trying to get a. I. Involved immediately. You can think about what it does. You can use a. I. To optimize your maintenance, you get high reliability rates, fewer breakdowns. But then theres the war fighting end. And we talk about speed and decision making. These days if youre i wasnt in the armor, i was in the infantry. I know a little bit about it. But if youre a tank platoon leader or tank commander, if you will, youve got people looking out on the battlefield and calling out enemy targets, if you will, enemy tanks, and you have sensors too. But imagine a world where you have a. I. Integrated to all your sensors and everything where the a. I. Is constantly scanning horizon and within milliseconds its sorting out whats a civilian you truck and combatant vehicle, whats a tank and whats a fighting vehicle, which one has a turret pointed at you and which one does. It allows you so much greater reaction to the enemy. Thats when the man loop comes to decide whether you decide to pull the trigger or not. Thats how weve got to think about a. I. , enabled quicker and faster questions that allows us to be successful on the battlefield. Thats a war fighting application. We can go towards even if its doing audits of the d. O. D. Which has never been done before. Were getting there. But everything. I mean a. I. Runs through everything we do and weve got to be able to make sure we get it. Thats why were trying to move adds quickly as we can to the cloud. Excellent. You mentioned during your preliminary notes here about your interest and Energy Behind a. I. When you went through your confirmation hearing you mentioned it as one of your highest priorities and you referred to the joint Artificial Intelligence commission committee, what are your thoughts for the future, and how do you think your leadership will be able to topdown as well as bottomup draw our department past that bureaucracy that youre discussing into that future . You know, the acquisition system is not as efficient as it should be. Yes, sir. Were trying to take advantage of laws given to us and authorities by congress but its slow. And the biggest problem with d. O. D. In terms of acquisition is the culture, right . Its a very risk averse. Weve got to change the culture. Thatll take time. You change the laws first, then the regulations and practices. And i think the services are moving forward at different rates. But weve got to empower the jake to be able to cut through these things to get there quicker. Were in a race. We have to get to the end state quicker than the chinese can, quicker than the russians can. There are a few key technologies out there. I put a. I. As number one. Two, three, and four look like directed energy and hypersonics and things like that. Either of those systems, whether its hypersonics directed energy, a. I. Is going to enable them in terms of how you employee them, how you maintain them, all that. Thats why a. I. To me pops up as number one. You mentioned in your conversations here the issue of bringing the best and brightest . Have you seen good collaboration between academia and industry . I seem to recall when i was working with you, there were some activities. Have you got examples that we can bring to the forefront to get people past that risk equation . Thats a good question. I wish i had some at hand. I mentioned before we kicked off a. I. Task force at Carnegie Melon University and doing good work there. Obviously the army is deeply integrated in austin, texas. Theyre doing a lot of work trying to cut through bureaucracy, doing cross functional teams to do that. I think all the services are looking for different ways where we can really accelerate the progress because we need to get there. We need to make sufficient investments and right now d. O. D. S in the final weeks of building its budget for the next year. And again a. I. Is one of those Critical Technologies we need to get to. But its not just the money. Its the people. I probably put people number one and then all the systems you need to enable them to do their jobs and do them well. You mentioned the talent and trying to recruit it. Theres a pipeline, as you know, that you went and experienced not just in the army but now in the broader context of d. O. D. Where science and technology, early research, and that investment is so important. What are your thoughts about the future in that investment, and where do you think it might be needed in the department . With regard on the personnel side . Yes. The biggest thing, one of the biggest things we were pushing in the army, and im confident secretary mccarthy and chief of staff mcconville is management. We had to overhaul the personnel system because it was holding us back too many ways. Thats just the military side. Theres the civilian side that needs looked at too. D. O. D. Does great work. We do a number of things really well. But when it comes to talent, were still working in an industrialaged system. And its regulated by the executive branch, congress, a number of constraints. Weve got to get past that and think outside the box. Were competing against industry, think tanks, all these folks are in high demand and theyre a low density pool of talent at this point. And you have an opportunity here with this community, its a mix of academic. Its a mix of civilian, et cetera. Is there anything you would call for them to think about that would help you in your problem solving . You know, i think the more that you can help us point out what are the obstacles we are putting in our own way. We have enough challenges out there external to us, so how do we what do we need to do better . What are you seeing that i dont see . I try every month to meet with groups of ceos or heads of associations and talk about what can we do better, how can we see ourselves better because typically what i hear is everything is okay. Everything is great. Everythings green. No problem. But when you reach out there, go walk around and visit folks and talk to companies and talk to entrepreneurs, you get a different story. Were trying to just beat those down one at a time as we realize were not doing this well or we could make adjustments to the system here and really up our talent. So were looking at ill take any problem and allows us if it can allow us to do better or ideas you have for us to perform, all those things help because this is too important. Thank you. To treat as anything else. Yeah. Your remarks and inputs have been excellent. Is there anything you would like to share beyond what ive asked you . Are there any thoughts for our folks here . No well, yes. I guess ill just keep foot stomping it is d. O. D. Doesnt have the monopoly on great ideas here or certainly all the talent. So much of it is coming from the private sector, so we really need your help. And be cautious of whats 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 to the german marshall fund, on this topic i tell them dont write off what were saying is United States scare mongering or in this case d. O. D. Scare mongering about china. Dont think were overstating the problem. There are serious issues out there and weve been asleep at the switch for quite some time. Were finally waking up in the past couple of years. And the National Defense strategy is what has pointed d. O. D. In the right direction saying were now in an era of great power competition. China is our greatest competitor, russia number two. And we need to be prepared for high intensity conflict across five domains of warfare, five domains, no longer three. Thats where were headed and we need your help to get there. Thank you, sir, so much, very much. Thank you. Please thank the secretary. [ applause ] weeknights this week were featuring American History tv programs as a preview of whats available every weekend on cspan3. Tonight beginning at 8 00 eastern, historian and author phillip greenwald gives a talk on bostons involvement in the revolutionary war. This is part of a daylong symposium cohosted by the emerging revolutionary blog. Enjoy American History tv in prime time this week on cspan3. The media marketplace has shifted dramatically in the last dozen years or so. And the s. E. C. Has failed to keep pace. We have these rules in place that basically assume the entire media marketplace is three broadcast television stations at night skpi adaily newspaper that clunks on your front doorstep in the morning. It is a vastly different market. Fcc commissioner tonight at 8 00 eastern on the communicators on cspan 2. The house will be in order. For 40 years, cspan has been providing america unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court, and Public Policy events from washington, d. C. And around the country so you can make up your own mind. Created by cable in 1979, cspan is brought to you by your local cable or satellite provider. Cspan, your unfiltered view of government. Current and former government officials spoke at a recent conference of Artificial Intelligence. In this portion, senator joni ernst talked about the implications of a. I. For National Security and intelligence c