Dana Deasy on AI strategy
From Emerge 2019 Program Keynote: Dana Deasy, CIO, DoD · · General Dynamics Information Technology
“We are referring to those in our AI strategy as national mission initiatives and I'm actually going to take you through a couple of them today just to really bring it to life and then there will be initiatives that we'll work on with a specific component we'll want them to own that but will want them to use the center's tools and capabilities and referring to those as CM eyes at the end of the day we look at this as a human centered activity meaning that everything we do we always think about the human that's still in the middle of these decision taking no matter what the algorithm looks like and we have to keep thinking about that many of these solutions are literally going to have to get out to the tactical edge.”
On , Dana Deasy, Chief Information Digital Officer, Senior Vice President, Information Digital Technology & Security at Boeing, spoke about AI strategy during Emerge 2019 Program Keynote: Dana Deasy, CIO, DoD on General Dynamics Information Technology.
About Dana Deasy
Dana Deasy, as the Department of Defense Chief Information Officer, has emphasized a digital modernization strategy built on four pillars: cloud, artificial intelligence, command and control communications, and next-generation cybersecurity. Speaking at several events in 2018 and 2019, he argued that AI would become "more than just a tool" and "a partner" to the warfighter, and described the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center as a vehicle for cross-service "national mission initiatives." He cited specific pilot projects, such as an algorithm to predict sand buildup in Black Hawk helicopter engines and the use of AI to map wildfire fire lines in real time, as examples of the technology’s potential. Deasy also stressed the need to reframe acquisition priorities from "cost, schedule and performance" to "security, cost, schedule and performance," calling security a "condition of doing business." He advocated for decentralizing compute power to the "tactical edge" and leveraging cloud to improve data and algorithm delivery to deployed forces. In addition, he described his approach to organizational leadership as leaving "your organization in a better place" with "enduring, sustainable" change, and noted that his early focus as DoD CIO was aligning his office with the National Defense Strategy.