US military leans on AI and autonomy to shape the future of naval warfare

Hey folks, thanks for hitting that play button, and welcome to another episode of Weapons

and Warfare. For Straight Arrow News, I'm your host, Rad Robertson, and this week we're taking a deep

dive, pun very much intended, on the future of autonomy at sea

So we're catching up on some stories we've covered in previous episodes, like the Manta

4, built by Kraken, Anderl's Dive XL, and the Boeing Orca. Plus, we'll get an up-close look at Blue Halo's mission specialist, Defender, a cutting-edge

vehicle designed to tackle the most demanding underwater tasks with both precision and control

To start this week, we're talking national defense and how those that operate in the maritime space

are leaning on industry leaders to bring lethality, survivability, and affordability to the fight

For almost as long as people have been setting sail, they have understood the importance of sea power

From the ancient Greeks to the Cold War to today, time and again pioneers of naval warfare have helped shape and reshape the world as we know it

Now with the advent of autonomous capabilities and the emergence of artificial intelligence in the battle space

Naval warfare is on the edge of another generational shift. So much so that this year's Sea Airspace event put on by the Navy League

featured a panel of senior military leadership and an industry partner to talk about where things stand and where they need to go The way the Navy has gotten after this is really recognizing that AI is a bit like electricity

It's very ubiquitous. Its use case can be applied across so many different domains, from war fighting to our readiness piece

to really the business of how we operate the Navy. There's so many facets where we feel like we need to weave this technology into the very fabric

of how we do business and how we approach warfighting. Chief of Naval Research, Rear Admiral Kurt Rotenhaus

says the branch's approach focuses on identifying problems they want AI to solve

rather than using it just to use it. What are the most important and critical warfighting gaps

readiness gaps that we want to leverage the technology as established by the CNO and the NAV plan

It's an evolution the Marine Corps' Director of Capabilities Development and Integration

says has been on the agenda of General Eric Smith, as well as his predecessors

The Commandant's intent is that we are fighting at the tactical edge in that environment

and we're providing capability to sense, make sense, and deliver long-range fires

or provide what's needed to our joint partners and our combined partners

to deliver their long-range fires. Major General Farrell Sullivan says it's the next logical step in the Corps' embrace of AI

and autonomous projects, like their autonomous, low-profile vessel, nicknamed the Narco Boat

something we reported on in the early days of weapons and warfare. The ALPV is used to get critical supplies to forward-deployed Marines

Now we moving towards sensors that we are employing at sea not to compete with the Navy but to fill in where the Navy may not be And I don mean that as a shot across your bow in any way shape or form

I mean it completely as a teammate and partner. But that's a business that the Marine Corps has not been in in the past

The addition of autonomous vehicles piloted by AI is a development that both branches are leaning on their industry partners

to find the right blend of Marines, sailors, and technology. Helping drive the push towards the new era of defense

is former Navy SEAL and friend of the show, Brandon Sink. Certainly defense technology was not a word that I ever heard in 2015

It's great to see where we are today and the role that defense tech companies are playing

helping great customers like our Coast Guard, our Marine Corps, and our Navy

solve some of their most challenging problems. The co-founder and president of Shield AI has a long and proven track record of developing AI systems like Hivemind, the AI pilot that autonomously flew then-secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall in an F-16

Singh's company also built AI-piloted platforms that were used in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and most recently in Israel to help free hostages held in Gaza

He says it's just the first step in bringing more mass to the fight

I want to put a million AI pilots into the customer's hands in the next 10 years

When I look at 2045, I think that becomes 100 million AI pilots

And so that means it's a complete fundamental transformation of how a military thinks about their military

how a military thinks about their force structure. When you are no longer limited by the number of personnel that you have in your military what kind of power can you project What kind of adversaries can you deter That is why AI and autonomy is the most transformational capability of our time

Something the panel emphasized was the employment of AI systems doesn't necessarily mean the purchase of hardware

Case in point, the U.S. Coast Guard. They've partnered with Shield AI to utilize their VBAT platform as part of a contractor-owned, contractor-operated service

This means Shield AI retains ownership and operation of the VBATs while providing the Coast Guard with intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance services

I want to buy a capability. I don't necessarily want to buy a product

Like I don't if I think about I need C2 data on the water

I don't necessarily need to own the vehicle that is delivering that. Yes, sometimes we will have to own the vehicle because of some unique constraint

But if I'm looking to get sensor data, if you can put a sensor in a place where I need data from it, I am probably happier to buy that data from you than I am to buy the platform that you're using to deliver it

Evidence of the DoD's investment in AI is not hard to find

A report by Executive Gov shows the allocation of $1.1 billion in fiscal year 2023, $1.8 billion in 2024, and proposes the same for 2025

And I know some of you are thinking this all sounds sort of like the beginning of Terminator's Skynet

but that's a notion General Sullivan says doesn't quite match reality. Now, there may be a day that comes where we do go fully autonomous and there's less human in the loop

but that's not where we are today, and that's not what we intend to do