Hyten: Future U.S. battle plan needs AI

The Pentagon expects to complete its final plan for joint military operations in December and Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. John Hyten said today advancements in artificial intelligence will be "key" to transforming warfare.

Hyten, who spoke during a virtual Defense Department symposium, said China is "moving incredibly quickly" to develop AI for military use, though the United States remains ahead for now.

"It doesn't matter how far ahead you are," he said. "If somebody is running faster than you, they are eventually going to pass you."

That's why, he said, the Pentagon is finalizing its new Joint All-Domain Command and Control war plan that will eliminate previously drawn battlefield "lines."

"We're going to be able to bring fires from all domains including space and cyber, kinetic and non-kinetic," he said. "We'll be able to bring fires from all domains seamlessly and the speed with which you do that will overwhelm an adversary and hopefully create the environment where we no longer have to worry about fighting that war. That is deterrence."

But all that integration, Hyten said, will require major boosts in artificial intelligence and machine learning if gains are to be sustained.

"I can't figure out how to do that without artificial intelligence," he said. "It has to be enabled by artificial intelligence."

Though the Pentagon has been increasing its investments in AI development and operations, Hyten said the bulk of the spending will occur in the private sector. It's up to DOD, he said, to successfully partner with private companies, some of which might not traditionally consider themselves defense contractors and may be hesitant to work with the military because of bureaucratic red tape.

"As much as we're investing, it's orders of magnitude larger in the industrial sector," he said. "Our numbers pale in comparison. We have to be able to partner with [industry]. We don't like to do that in the Department of Defense. We like to think we're still the big dog in the room. In this case we're not. We have to get out of our own way in many cases and apply the [research and development] of others to our problems."