CPT(P) Dusty Turner from the Department of Mathematical Sciences participated in the NATO Science and Technology Organization Specialists meeting on Big Data and Artificial Intelligence for Military Decision Making in Bordeaux, France. Approximately 290 technology professionals from 21 NATO countries attended, and discussed topics to include:
- Emerging technologies in the field of Artificial Intelligence and how they will impact the future of warfare regarding information dominance, defense against cyber-attacks, and real-time decision making on the battlefield;
- Educating military leadership to understand Artificial Intelligence to be comfortable with its limitations;
- Public acceptance of Artificial Intelligence and the backlash organizations must be able to withstand when AI is responsible for catastrophic failures causing death and/or destruction (even when the aggregate damage is less than what a human could do);
- Potential legal issues that NATO countries must navigate as Artificial Intelligence grows to inform decisions and actions in military domains.
CPT(P) Turner presented a talk to the panel titled Sentiment Analysis in Restricted Environments stemming from the work of COL Joe Lindquist, MAJ Karoline Hood, and CPT(P) Patrick Kuiper for USARNORTH to analyze public sentiment in the wake of Hurricane Maria. His talk was unique and of interest to many conference attendees as it was the only presentation that demonstrated research that informed decision-making in real-time in an operational environment. He returned with valuable information to improve their methodology including implementing ways to limit the impact of malicious actors and implementing the three tenant user interface principals of overview first, zoom and filter, details on demand.