Leading the charge on AI in National Security

Practical AI: Machine Learning, Data Science, LLM

Chris & Daniel explore AI in national security with Lt. General Jack Shanahan (USAF, Ret.). The conversation reflects Jack’s unique background as the only senior U.S. military officer responsible for standing up and leading two organizations in the United States Department of Defense (DoD) dedicated to fielding artificial intelligence capabilities: Project Maven and the DoD Joint AI Center (JAIC).

Together, Jack, Daniel & Chris dive into the fascinating details of Jack’s recent written testimony to the U.S. Senate’s AI Insight Forum on National Security, in which he provides the U.S. government with thoughtful guidance on how to achieve the best path forward with artificial intelligence.

Join the discussion

Changelog++ members save 4 minutes on this episode because they made the ads disappear. Join today!

Sponsors:

• Shopify – Sign up for a $1/month trial period at shopify.com/practicalai
• Fly.io – The home of Changelog.com — Deploy your apps and databases close to your users. In minutes you can run your Ruby, Go, Node, Deno, Python, or Elixir app (and databases!) all over the world. No ops required. Learn more at fly.io/changelog and check out the speedrun in their docs.

Featuring:

• Jack Shanahan – LinkedIn
• Chris Benson – Twitter, GitHub, LinkedIn, Website
• Daniel Whitenack – Twitter, GitHub, Website

Show Notes:

• Gen AI Master class
• Written Testimony of Lieutenant General John (Jack) N.T. Shanahan (USAF, Ret.) AI Insight Forum: National Security
• Software Defined Warfare: Architecting the DOD’s Transition to the Digital Age
• Artificial Intelligence and Geopolitics:vHitching the Disruptive Technology Cart to the Geopolitics Horse | LinkedIn
• Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC) | Wikipedia

Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

Luvut

1. Welcome to Practical AI (00:00:00)

2. Gen AI Mastery class (00:00:43)

https://lu.ma/nbi7pz6y

3. Welcome Jack Shanahan (00:02:21)

4. The start of Jack's story (00:04:21)

5. At scale at the government level / Government scaling vs Industry Scaling (00:08:17)

6. Changing cultures in the Dept. of Defense (00:13:12)

7. Managing risky AI usecases (00:17:28)

8. Lessons from Ukraine (00:21:18)

9. Blueprint for best practices (00:25:30)

10. Embedding AI in software vs swapping software for AI (00:28:21)

11. Sponsor: Shopify (00:31:23)

https://www.shopify.com/practicalai

12. Human & AI teaming (00:33:55)

13. How to assess AI (00:38:28)

14. Techno-Economic net assessments (00:43:22)

15. Future of AI in warfare (00:47:28)

16. Thank you! (00:50:48)

17. Outro (00:51:09)