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The United States Department of War has announced the integration of Google Cloud’s Gemini for Government into a “new bespoke AI platform”, writes David Hollingworth.
The US War Department has announced a new “bespoke” AI platform for its military personnel, GenAI.mil.
The initiative is part of what the Pentagon calls cultivating an “AI-first workforce” designed to create a more battle-ready workforce.
The GenAI.mil platform is part of a White House-driven initiative to deliver “an unprecedented level of AI technological superiority” over its enemies and according to Emil Michael, Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering, the platform is part of the United States’ God-given right to “dominate” lesser nations.
“There is no prize for second place in the global race for AI dominance,” Under Secretary Michael said in a 9 December statement.
“We are moving rapidly to deploy powerful AI capabilities like Gemini for Government directly to our workforce. AI is America’s next Manifest Destiny, and we’re ensuring that we dominate this new frontier."
The platform is the work of the War Department’s Office of Research & Engineering – specifically, its AI Rapid Capabilities Cell.
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said that the US is “pushing all of our chips in on artificial intelligence as a fighting force”.
“The department is tapping into America’s commercial genius, and we’re embedding generative AI into our daily battle rhythm,” Secretary Hegseth said.
“AI tools present boundless opportunities to increase efficiency, and we are thrilled to witness AI’s future positive impact across the War Department.”
With the talk of battle rhythms, and of course Secretary Hegseth’s own rallying cry of “reviving the warrior ethos”, it would be an easy mistake to think there may be some kinetic angle to the new platform, but according to Secretary Hegseth himself, it’s more of a typical ChatGPT-style chatbot – one that is capable of ingesting sensitive defence data.
“At the click of a button, AI models on GenAI can be used to conduct deep research, format documents and even analyse video or imagery at unprecedented speed,” Secretary Hegseth said in a video posted to Elon Musk’s X.
“We will continue to aggressively field the world’s best technology to make our fighting force more lethal than ever before.”
Document formatting. Ooh-rah!
