Trump’s AI Action Plan Opens up the Future of Defense

Last week President Trump unveiled his AI Action Plan — a 28-page strategy dogma backed by three executive orders.

Broadly speaking, the plan calls for deregulation, infrastructure investment, and relaxing AI export restrictions in an effort to spur AI development and adoption.

Obviously, this will be good for Silicon Valley, but it stands to also benefit America’s military, which will have more opportunities to leverage AI on the battlefield and stay ahead of our near-peer adversaries.

“Just like we won the space race, it is imperative that the United States and its allies win this race,” the directive notes.

To achieve that victory, it calls on the Pentagon to perform several actions.

First, it tasks DARPA with coordinating with other federal agencies to “advance AI interpretability, AI control systems, and adversarial robustness.”

I take this to mean making sure that AI development and implementation is standardized across the federal government — especially when it comes to mission control nodes and matters of national security.

Secondly, the AI Action Plan calls on the Pentagon to orchestrate “AI hackathons,” soliciting “the best and brightest from U.S. academia to test AI systems for transparency, effectiveness, use control, and security vulnerabilities.”

This isn’t exactly new. 

For nearly a decade, the Defense Department has invited tech experts to take part in its Defense Digital Service, which it terms a “SWAT team of nerds.” 

It also hosts a “Hack the Pentagon” competition that rewards anyone who finds and reports a vulnerability in its networks.

Meanwhile, outside of the government, Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) is launching its own “AI Fight Club” where independent developers and tech startups can test their mettle. 

Furthermore, the AI Action Plan gives the DoD a leading role in multiple AI security initiatives. To that end, it’s been tasked with leading interagency efforts to “create new technical standards for high-security AI centers” and to track and assess adversary progress in AI.

The directive also says the Pentagon should work with other agencies to stimulate domestic tech manufacturing, refine export controls, and establish an “AI and Autonomous Systems Virtual Proving Ground.”

Again, that last one sounds a lot like Lockheed Martin’s AI fight club.

Finally, Trump’s AI Action Plan aims to transform America’s war colleges into “hubs of AI research.” 

They are to  equip future generations with core AI skills and literacy and build out AI-specific curriculum. 

None of this is groundbreaking, but it’s another major step toward fully embedding AI into America’s national security framework. 

Indeed, AI defense isn’t just about creating autonomous killing machines or analyzing vast troves of data (though that’s certainly a part of it). 

It’s also about streamlining development, task orders, work flow, maintenance.

It’s about developing cyberwarfare tools — both offensive and defensive in nature.

And it’s about educating and fostering the AI experts of tomorrow.

Trump’s AI Action Plan moves us closer to that goal.

Of course, if you want to profit from America’s most advanced AI programs then you should check out my latest report here. It details the company that’s at the tip of the spear.