faceless digital artificial intelligence officer

zonia-reusser-manby April 30, 2023 Comment

DoD Chief Information Officer John Sherman will serve as the acting chief digital and artificial intelligence officer (CDAO), a newly created office designed to oversee the Defense Digital Service, the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center and the CIO he was already leading. (Chad J. McNeeley/U.S. Defense Department)

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon’s chief information officer will also serve as the head of a new organization overseeing the Defense Department’s various digital and artificial intelligence efforts, the department announced Feb. 2.

DoD Chief Information Officer John Sherman will serve as the acting chief digital and artificial intelligence officer, or CDAO, a newly created office designed to oversee the Defense Digital Service, the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center and the CIO office he was already leading. The new office was established to better align a number of data, analytics, digital solutions and AI efforts across the DoD. Previously, all three of those offices reported directly to the deputy defense secretary.

Now Operational Dod Chief Digital And Ai Office Will Be An Example Of Innovation, Officials Say

“I’m honored to be able to help get this organization stood up, again, while performing my chief information officer duties and also serving as the acting CDAO, ” Sherman said. “In addition to getting CDAO up and ready for [full operational capability], rest assured we’ll remain laser focused on our CIO duties of cybersecurity, digital modernization, C3 [command, control and communication], and other areas that the department relies on.”

Sherman has a long history working on national security and information issues. After serving a three-year stint as the chief information officer of the intelligence community, Sherman joined the DoD as the principal deputy chief information officer. Just over a year ago, he was named acting chief information officer by the incoming Biden administration.

The CDAO was established Dec. 8 and achieved initial operating capability Feb. 1, the Pentagon noted. Full operating capability is expected by June 1, and the Pentagon wants a leader selected for the position by then. Once that is accomplished, the Pentagon will submit proposals to Congress to adjust authorities and reporting lines accordingly. The department expects about 200-300 people to be combined under the new office with an approximately $500 million budget.

Balancing Automation, Artificial Intelligence, And Human Relationships

The Pentagon also issued a memo clarifying how the new CDAO position differs from other high-level positions within the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

For example, the undersecretary of defense for research and engineering will lead data, analytics and Al policy related to basic research through prototyping, while the CDAO will carry those efforts from prototyping to operations. The CIO will continue to lead on core infrastructure — such as cybersecurity, cloud, data transport and networks — while the CDAO will set requirements for that core infrastructure and provide policy and guidance for the data, analytics and AI that interact with it.

How ‘Edge Semaphores’ can help solve interoperability challengesModern communications needs compact data packages, or “edge semaphores, " that are concise, precise, interoperable and secure.

Ai In Art Is Developing And Getting Creative Rapidly

Addressing OT security under the National Cybersecurity StrategyLessons learned from modernizing IT won’t apply to OT because of the latter's unique operating requirements.

Connectivity will ‘make or break’ US military use of AI, official saysThe Pentagon is pursuing seamless networking through a connect-everything campaign known as Joint All-Domain Command and Control, or JADC2.It has become common practice for attackers to use Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) to link tools together so that they can be run in parallel when conducting an attack.

Attackers use AI and ML to take the results from one tool and then allow the other tools to "learn" about the finding and use it against other systems. As an example, if a one tool finds a password, that tool can feed the information to another tool or bot that may conduct the exploitation of one or many systems using the discovered password.

Aware Hawk549: School Of Artificial Intelligence And With Main Figure A Cute Dinosaur With Graduation Cap

AI and ML allows for an attacker to program a toolset or bot to act like a "real" attacker. As an example, the tool or bot may launch a phishing attack against an organization and then take the results of the phishing tool and conduct other types of attacks just as a human would.

Attackers are building toolsets and bots that use AI and ML techniques to evade detection and blocking the methods already in place within most organizations. Many of these tools (typically open source) can be easily obtained from the Internet. This gives anyone the ability to run the tools against target organizations.

In an article in Wired President Obama expressed his concerns about AI-enabled bots attacking nuclear weapon silos and causing a launch. This intimates that the threat of AI and ML enhanced attacks are a major concern even at the highest level of government.

Roi: The Only Contact Center Acronym That Matters

As the Chief Information Officer of Digital Defense, Tom DeSot is charged with developing and maintaining relationships with key industry and market regulators; functioning as the "face of DDI" through public speaking initiatives, identifying key integration and service partnerships, and serving as the prime regulatory compliance resource for external and internal contacts. Tom also serves as the company’s internal auditor on security-related matters.The position is meant to streamline disparate efforts within the department to drive faster innovation and capabilities with China in mind. (Gorodenkoff Productions OU/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Defense Department is creating a new position to oversee its digital and artificial intelligence activities, with the hope the office will be able to drive faster progress in those areas and meet threats posed by China, according to a senior defense official.

The new chief digital and artificial intelligence officer, or CDAO, will directly report to the deputy defense secretary and oversee the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, the Defense Digital Service and the DoD’s chief data officer, according to a memo released Dec. 8. Today, those offices directly report to the deputy defense secretary, something the senior defense official said has led to disjointedness.

Synthetic Humans: Digital Twins Living And Breathing Online

“We’ve created the CDO, the JAIC and DDS each operating independently and as if the other ones don’t exist, ” said the officer, who briefed media Dec. 8 on the condition of anonymity. “That causes two kinds of inefficiencies. One, it means we don’t have the kind of integration across their lines of effort that we could really maximize the impact of the things that any one organization is doing. Two, it means we don’t take advantage of when there are overlaps in what they’re doing, or underlaps in what they are doing to drive the right kind of prioritization in these spaces.”

The official insisted this new position is not meant to create more bureaucracy, but rather serve as an integration function to better drive priorities across these related functional areas.

It is unclear who will lead this organization, but the senior official said the department is looking both inside and outside the Pentagon. The intent is to establish an initial operating capability for the office by Feb. 1, 2022, and reach full operating capability no later than June 1, 2022, the official said.

Nifty Hare505: Custom Faceless Portrait, Faceless Portrait Print, Custom Portrait, Faceless Digital Portrait, Couple Digital Faceless Illustration, Asap

After establishing an initial operating capability, the office will work with existing authorities to integrate and align the three offices it will oversee. The CDAO will serve as the successor organization to the JAIC, the official said, meaning it will be the lead AI organization within the Pentagon. The CDAO will act as an intervening supervisor for DDS, working to scale new digital solutions and apply them to other problems.

After reaching full operating capability, the official said, the DoD will submit legislative proposals to Congress to adjust authorities and reporting lines.

The senior official noted that this new organizational change gets to the heart of the Pentagon’s Joint All-Domain Command and Control approach, which seeks to more seamlessly connect sensor information to shooters to allow for faster decision-making.

Dod's Digital And Ai 2022 Symposium

“It is JADC2. JADC2 is the integration of disparate data sources into a common architecture that allows us to have clear, senior-leader-down-to-operator decisions to drive warfighting improvements, ” the official said. “To do that. you need a range of capabilities from common data architecture to a common development and deployment environment that allows you to take your applications either digital or AI-enabled and move them to the warfighter.”

Moreover, the hope is that the new CDAO position will accelerate progress on initiatives such as common data fabrics, open architectures and open APIs — all key enablers of JADC2.

The position is expected to help the DoD identify solutions to fit these problems and build toward common foundational elements, common development environments and common deployment environments.

Ai's Growth Can Increase Cybercrimes And Security Threats

It will also help scale the department, which currently has several startup efforts in these areas but needs to make them full-fledged projects.

“We have a couple of startups here, and to get to the scale at the speed we need in the department, we need a central advocate who can manage the resources, manage the priorities, connect with [combatant command] commanders and service leadership to really drive the prioritization and deployment of those solutions, ” the official explained.

How ‘Edge Semaphores’ can help solve interoperability challengesModern communications needs compact data packages, or “edge semaphores, " that are concise, precise, interoperable and secure.