The Pentagon's chief technologist says he is increasingly focused on rapid advancements in autonomy, artificial intelligence and synthetic biology as recent breakthroughs pose challenges and opportunities with the potential to disrupt the Defense Department's push for innovation. "If you asked me what I spend my time on in my DOD chief technologists' hat, it's autonomy-AI and synthetic biology," Stephen Welby, the assistant secretary of defense for research and engineering, said at an Oct. 25 systems engineering conference hosted by the...
