AI Articles and Analysis in Government

Due to the popularity of our recent report on AI at the top 5 US defense contractors, we decided to broaden our scope of AI in the world's militaries. This report attempts to illuminate the current artificial intelligence projects at Europe’s largest private defense contractors.

In the past decade the number of people killed by natural disasters each year has ranged from as low as 14,389 in 2015 to as high as 314,503 in 2010, according to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. Every year over 100,000,000 people are also affected by natural disasters. Government, companies, and aid organizations are all working to keep these tragic deaths as low as possible. One tool they have turned to for help in recent years is search and rescue robots.

wikiMany of the pivotal technologies utilized by the public today have their roots in military projects. The internet’s first successful message transfer was due to a U.S. Department of Defense-awarded contract in 1969 for the development of the “ARPANET project.” Global Positioning System (GPS) technology utilized in smartphones today was put in place and created in the 1970s for accurate military positioning, coordination, and tracking.

Lockheed Martin offers numerous artificial intelligence solutions to the US military. The company claims to help military operators effectively complete both routine and critical missions with less risk of endangering the lives of military operators. In 2017, Lockheed Martin reported $51 billion in revenue, $35.2 billion reported from contracts with the US Government. This makes Lockheed Martin the largest contractor for the US military and the largest defense contractor in the world.

Event Title: Artificial Intelligence - Reshaping National Security

Event Host: United Nations (UNICRI), Shanghai Institutes for International Studies

Boeing offers a number of autonomous vehicles to the military, which it claims can help military operators effectively complete both routine and critical missions with less risk of endangering the lives of military operators. In 2017, Boeing Defense, the predominantly non-commercial division of Boeing that focuses on government contracts, reported 29.5 Billion dollars in revenue. This makes it the second largest defense contractor for the US military and the world. Boeing, established in 1916,  is a publicly traded company that employs over 120,000 people.

Episode Summary: This week, we're going to be talking about the defense sector. We interview Ryan Welsh, CEO of Kyndi, a company working on explainable AI. We focus specifically on the unique data challenges of the defense industry, as well as the general use case of AI in defense writ large. Many of the challenges that the defense sector has to deal with transfer to other spaces and sectors. Business leaders that deal with extremely disjointed text information, what is sometimes called "dark data," and information in various languages or different dialects, will be able to resonate with some of the unique challenges talked about in this episode, and maybe even gain some insights for how to handle them.

According to Accenture, approximately 66% of A&D executives polled indicated they are looking at investing in AI for 2019, particularly on security, production, and R&D. 80% believe that AI-based decisions will have a direct impact on the workforce by 2021.