Preparedness for the AI Era Requires a Reserve of Critical Workers

RAND Corporation | Carter C. Price

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has identified 55 National Critical Functions essential to United States national security, yet premature reliance on artificial intelligence threatens to dismantle human workforce pipelines in these sectors. Unchecked assumption of imminent automation discourages new entrants and risks complete loss of non-codified tacit knowledge across vital infrastructure.

During the early COVID-19 pandemic, state governments were forced to recall retired COBOL programmers to maintain unemployment benefit infrastructure after 24 million workers lost their jobs. To prevent systemic operational collapse during technical failures or cyberattacks, decision authorities must establish structured human reserve programs. These reserves would maintain operational readiness through funded training, manual fallback protocols, and periodic recertification exercises modelled on National Guard frameworks. Market forces naturally prioritise efficiency over essential strategic redundancy. Preserving operational coordination and control during severe crises requires deliberate government planning before specialised human capabilities permanently vanish.

Comment

Automated decision-support systems operating across the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency's 55 National Critical Functions erode command authority whenever manual override protocols depend on uncodified operator experience. Routine reliance on automated routing across federal energy grids gradually severs authority structures from physical control loops. Command staff at facilities like the Y-12 National Security Complex consequently lose the operational baseline required to validate machine output during anomalous system events.

This friction mechanism stems directly from the loss of tacit operational familiarity among federal grid operators who never execute manual load-shedding. Exercise frameworks derived from National Guard domestic response drills confirm that command hierarchies retain control only through regular execution of manual fallback protocols. Absent periodic manual command exercises at CISA-monitored infrastructure nodes, operational directives issued during automated outages risk procedural failure.

Strategic Question for Discussion

If automated control systems across CISA-designated critical infrastructure experience prolonged network denial, does command authority effectively revert to manual operators, or does the loss of tacit operational knowledge create an irreversible decision vacuum?

The available evidence points toward a severe decision vacuum because technical operators lacking routine exposure to degraded-mode procedures struggle to establish manual situational awareness during complex outages. While automated redundancies provide short-term continuity, historical precedents like the COBOL maintenance crisis demonstrate that manual command loops break down rapidly once tacit knowledge pipelines are severed. Consequently, command authority becomes structurally decoupled from operational execution until manual proficiency is systematically restored.

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