COMMENTARY
what we need. Tat requires a focus on the data collection and reporting that we don’t have today.
As a NATO-ally friend of mine once told me, “You Americans are world class at collecting lessons learned. However, I don’t see you really learning any lessons from the data that you collect.”
Artificial intelligence offers the possi- bility of using the history captured in acquisition data, the lessons learned, to enable PMs to address the complexity of weapon system development head-on and learn from our lessons. AI can’t replace PMs, but its potential offers the chance for the defense acquisition community to get ahead of the relentless complexity of system development and be able to get cost, schedule and performance right. And it can permit us to get ahead of the prob- lems for once.
MODERNIZATION THROUGH AI
Members of the Carnegie Mellon University National Robotics Engineering Center set up equipment during a data collection event Jan. 13 at Fort Hunter Liggett. A partnership between Carnegie Mellon and the Army’s AI Task Force aims to modernize the Army and its processes through AI. (Photo by Patrick Ferraris, Army Artificial Intelligence Task Force)
the mission and make sense. More impor- tantly, we must be sure they are efficient. AI can and will do what we teach it, but it can’t think and it can’t tell if something makes sense.
CONNECTING THE DOTS Tere is good news in the potential for AI to address the complexities of weapon system development, but AI can’t fix every- thing. AI offers the possibility of radically changing the PM’s role from reactive to proactive. Te biggest challenge for PMs is to clearly define their expectations for AI
so the system will contribute to program success.
Te biggest challenge for DOD is the data—determining whether it’s the right data, in the right quantities and if it is clean and accurate. To perform at an opti- mal level, AI requires big data, and the data must be relevant to the way we do business.
Data collected “because we’ve always done it that way” wastes valuable effort that could be better focused on getting exactly
DR. CHARLES K. PICKAR is a senior lecturer at the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) in Monterey, California, where he teaches program management, acquisition and systems engineering in the Graduate School of Defense Management. He has more than 30 years of management and research experience, including leadership positions at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Science Applications International Corp., and Lockheed Martin Corp. He holds a doctorate in business administration from Nova Southeastern University, an M.S. in systems engineering from Johns Hopkins University, an M.A. in national security affairs from NPS and a B.A. in business from the University of Maryland. He is a graduate of the U.S. Army School of Advanced Military Studies. Te author’s last Been Tere, Done Tat column was “An Exercise to Experience,” in the Fall 2019 issue.
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