MAJ Matt Tetreau, USA
Introduction
Artificial intelligence (AI) promises to enable commanders and staff to make better informed, faster decisions. Integrating and analyzing the vast quantities of data available to commanders today all but necessitates reliance on AI tools. What’s more, as adversaries adopt AI planning tools, the speed of decision required to fight and win is likely to outpace the capabilities of human cognition. Despite the advantages afforded by AI, I propose that human staff should retain certain functions, even at some cost in efficiency. Just as AI is too critical for the future of mission command to ignore, some tasks are too critical for generating understanding to delegate to an algorithm. My arguments against AI performing specific functions focus primarily on the value that staff derive by executing those processes and the imperative to solve the right problems.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s dictum that “plans are worthless, but planning is everything,” underscores the value of process over output. While AI tools will likely produce serviceable plans, military professionals must grapple with the advantages in speed and manpower afforded by AI relative to the understanding and adaptability that result from deliberate planning processes. Decisions made by the Army in the coming years will set institutional norms, standards and approaches to harnessing this critical technology. Integrating AI into operational headquarters requires a deliberate and nuanced approach that synergizes the unique benefits afforded by both AI and humans. I propose a framework for an AI-enabled staff that retains and amplifies distinctly human competencies.
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