30 juillet 2018 | International, C4ISR

Targeting the future of the DoD’s controversial Project Maven initiative

Bob Work, in his last months as deputy secretary of defense, wanted everything in place so that the Pentagon could share in the sweeping advances in data processing already enjoyed by the thriving tech sector.

A memo dated April 26, 2017, established an “Algorithmic Warfare Cross-Functional Team,” a.k.a. “Project Maven.” Within a year, the details of Google's role in that program, disseminated internally among its employees and then shared with the public, would call into question the specific rationale of the task and the greater question of how the tech community should go about building algorithms for war, if at all.

Project Maven, as envisioned, was about building a tool that could process drone footage quickly and in a useful way. Work specifically tied this task to the Defeat-ISIS campaign. Drones are intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance platforms first and foremost. The unblinking eyes of Reapers, Global Hawks and Gray Eagles record hours and hours of footage every mission, imagery that takes a long time for human analysts to scan for salient details. While human analysts process footage, the ground situation is likely changing, so even the most labor-intensive approach to analyzing drone video delivers delayed results.

In July 2017, Marine Corps Col. Drew Cukor, the chief of the Algorithmic Warfare Cross-Function Team, presented on artificial intelligence and Project Maven at a defense conference. Cukor noted, “AI will not be selecting a target [in combat] ... any time soon. What AI will do is complement the human operator.”

As Cukor outlined, the algorithm would allow human analysts to process two or three times as much data within the same timeframe. To get there, though, the algorithm to detect weapons and other objects has to be built and trained. This training is at the heart of neural networks and deep learning, where the computer program can see an unfamiliar object and classify it based on its resemblance to other, more familiar objects. Cukor said that before deploying to battle “you've got to have your data ready and you've got to prepare and you need the computational infrastructure for training.”

At the time, the contractor who would develop the training and image-processing algorithms for Project Maven was unknown, though Cukor did specifically remark on how impressive Google was as an AI company. Google's role in developing Maven would not come to light until March 2018, when Gizmodo reported that Google is helping the Pentagon build AI for drones. Google's role in the project was discussed internally in the company, and elements of that discussion were shared with reporters.

“Some Google employees were outraged that the company would offer resources to the military for surveillance technology involved in drone operations,” wrote Kate Conger and Dell Cameron, “while others argued that the project raised important ethical questions about the development and use of machine learning.”

A petition by the Tech Workers Coalition that circulated in mid-April called upon not just Google to pull out of Pentagon contracts, but for Amazon, Microsoft and IBM to refuse to pick up the work of Project Maven. (The petition attracted 300 signatures at the time of this story.)

Silicon Valley's discord over the project surprised many in positions of leadership within the Pentagon. During the 17th annual C4ISRNET Conference, Justin Poole, the deputy director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, was asked how the intelligence community can respond to skepticism in the tech world. Poole's answer was to highlight the role of intelligence services in reducing risk to war fighters.

Disagreement between some of the people working for Google and the desire of the company's leadership to continue pursuing Pentagon contracts exacerbated tension in the company throughout spring. By May, nearly a dozen Google employees had resigned from the company over its involvement with Maven, and an internal petition asking the company to cancel the contract and avoid future military projects garnered thousands of employee signatures. To calm tensions, Google would need to find a way to reconcile the values of its employees with the desire of its leadership to develop further AI projects for a growing range of clients.

That list of clients, of course, includes the federal government and the Department of Defense.

While efforts to convince the tech community at large to refuse Pentagon work have stalled, the pressure within Google resulted in multiple tangible changes. First, Google leadership announced the company's plan to not renew the Project Maven contract when it expired in 2019. Then, the company's leaders released principles for AI, saying it would not develop intelligence for weapons or surveillance applications.

After outlining how Google intends to build AI in the future, with efforts to mitigate bias, aid safety and be accountable, Google CEO Sundar Pichai set out categories of AI work that the company will not pursue. This means refusing to design or deploy “technologies that cause or are likely to cause overall harm,” including an explicit prohibition on weapons principally designed to harm people, as well as surveillance tech that violates international norms.

Taken together, these principles amount to a hard-no only on developing AI specifically intended for weapons. The rest are softer no's, objections that can change with interpretations of international law, norms, and even in how a problem set is described.

After all, when Poole was asked how to sell collaboration with the intelligence community to technology companies, he framed the task as one about saving the lives of war fighters.

The “how” of that lifesaving is ambiguous: It could equally mean better and faster intelligence analysis that gives a unit on patrol the information it needs to avoid an ambush, or it could be the advance info that facilitates an attack on an adversary's encampment when the guard shift is particularly understaffed. Image processing with AI is so ambiguous a technology, so inherently open to dual-use, that the former almost certainly isn't a violation of Google's second objection to AI use, but the latter example absolutely would be.

In other words, the long-term surveillance that goes into targeted killing operations above Afghanistan and elsewhere is likely out of bounds. However, the same technology used over Iraq for the fight against ISIS might be permissible. And software built to process drone footage in the latter context would be identical to the software built to process images for the former.

The lines between what this does and doesn't prevent becomes even murkier when one takes into account that Google built its software for Project Maven on top of TensorFlow, an open-source software library. This makes it much harder to build in proprietary constraints on the code, and it means that once the Pentagon has a trainable algorithm on hand, it can continue to develop and refine its object-recognition AI as it chooses.

But the window for Google to be involved in such a project, whether to the joy or dismay of its employees and executive leadership, is likely closing.

In late June, the Pentagon announced creation of a Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, which among other functions would take over Project Maven from the Algorithmic Warfare Cross-Functional Team. The defense sector is vast, and with Google proving to be a complicated contractor for the Pentagon, new leadership may simply take its AI contracts worth million elsewhere with to see if it can get the programming it needs. And Maven itself still receives accolades within the Pentagon.

Gen. Mike Holmes, commander of Air Combat Command, praised Project Maven at a June 28 defense writers group breakfast, saying that the use of learning machines and algorithms will speed up the process by which humans process information and pass on useful insights to decisions makers.

Inasmuch as the Pentagon has a consensus view of explaining tools like Maven, it is about focusing on the role of the human in the process. The software will do the first pass through the imagery collected, and then as designed highlight other details for a human to review and act upon. Holmes was adamant that fears of malicious AIs hunting humans, like Skynet from the “Terminator” movies, are beyond premature.

“We're going to have to work through as Americans our comfort level on how technologies are used and how they're applied,” said Holmes. “I'd make the case that our job is to compete with these world-class peer competitors that we have, and by competing and by setting this competition on terms that we can compete without going to conflict, it's better for everybody.”

AI of the tiger

Project Maven, from the start, is a program specifically sold and built for the work of fighting a violent nonstate actor, identifying the weapons and tools of an insurgency that sometimes holds swaths of territory.

“Our responsibility is to help people understand what the intent is with the capability that we are helping to develop. ... Maven is focused on minimizing collateral damage on the battlefield. There's goodness in that,” said Capt. Sean Heritage, acting managing partner of Defense Innovation Unit Experimental (DIUx).

“There's always risk in how it will be used down the road, and I guess that's where a small pocket of people at Google's heads were. But, as Mr. Work pointed out during his panel at Defense One, they don't seem to have as challenging of a time contributing to AI capability development in China.”

Google's fight over Project Maven is partly about the present — the state of AI, the role of the United States in pursuing insurgencies abroad. It is also a fight about how the next AI will be built, and who that AI will be built to be used against. And the Pentagon seems to understand this, too. In the same meeting where Holmes advocated for Maven as a useful tool for now, he argued that it was important for the United States to develop and field tools that can match peer or near-peer rivals in a major conflict.

That's a far cry from selling the tool to Silicon Valley as one of immediate concern, to protect the people fighting America's wars presently through providing superior real-time information.

“The idea of a technology being built and then used for war, even if that wasn't the original intent,” says author Malka Older, “is what science fiction writers call a ‘classic trope.' ”

Older's novels, set two or three generations in the near-future, focus on the ways in which people, governments and corporations handle massive flows of data, and provide one possible vision of a future where the same kinds and volumes of data are collected, but where that data is also held by a government entity and shared transparently.

While radical transparency in data is alien to much of the defense establishment, it's an essential part of the open-source technology community for security concerns both genuine and sometimes not-so genuine. Building open source means publishing code and letting outsiders find flaws and vulnerabilities in the algorithm, without looking at any of the sensitive data the algorithm is built to process.

And Project Maven is built on top of open-source framework.

“One of the dangerous concepts that we have of technology is that progress only goes in one direction,” says Older.

“There's constantly choices being made of where technology goes and where concepts go and what we are trying to do.”

While it's entirely possible that the Pentagon will be able to continue the work of Project Maven and other AI programs with new contractors, if it wanted to reach out to those skeptical of how the algorithm would interpret images, it could try justifying the mission not just with national security concerns, but with transparency.

“Part of being an American is that Americans have expectations about what their government does and whether the government uses tech and tools to infringe upon their rights or not,” said Holmes. “And, so, we have really high standards as a nation that the things that we bring forward as military tools have to live up to.”

To work with the coders of the future, it may not be enough to say that the code — open source or not — is going to be used in ways consistent with their values. The Pentagon may have to find ways to transparently prove it.

https://www.c4isrnet.com/it-networks/2018/07/27/targeting-the-future-of-the-dods-controversial-project-maven-initiative/

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6 juillet 2020 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité

Contract Awards by US Department of Defense - July 02, 2020
ARMY EA-Baker JV, Hunt Valley, Maryland, was awarded a $99,000,000 firm-fixed-price contract to support the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in executing the Defense Logistics Agency Energy fuels infrastructure mission for fuel leak detection. Bids were solicited via the internet with one received. Work locations and funding will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date of July 2, 2025. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Omaha, Nebraska, is the contracting activity (W9128F-20-D-0028). NCI Information System, Reston, Virginia, was awarded a $57,285,857 contract for information technology and audiovisual engineering and installation services. Bids were solicited via the internet with one received. Work will be performed in Fort Belvoir, Virginia, with an estimated completion date of July 1, 2022. Fiscal 2020 procurement, defense-wide funds in the amount of $57,285,857 were obligated at the time of the award. The Army Contracting Command, Detroit Arsenal, Michigan, is the contracting activity. (W50NH9-20-F-0039). Don Jon Marine Co., Hillside, New Jersey, was awarded a $19,697,607 modification (P00004) to contract W912DS-19-C-0013 for dredging the Newark Bay main channel. Work will be performed in Newark, New Jersey, with an estimated completion date of Sept. 27, 2020. Fiscal 2018, 2019, and 2020 civil construction funds in the amount of $19,697,607 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, New York, New York, is the contracting activity. LGC Global Inc.,* Detroit, Michigan, was awarded a $7,506,196 firm-fixed-price contract for construction of a youth center annex at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst. Bids were solicited via the internet with 11 received. Work will be performed at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, New Jersey, with an estimated completion date of July 16, 2021. Fiscal 2020 non-appropriated funds in the amount of $7,506,196 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, New York, New York, is the contracting activity (W912DS-20-C-0016). AIR FORCE LinQuest Corp., Los Angeles, California, has been awarded a $76,637,171 cost-plus-fixed-fee modification (P00014) to contract FA8808-19-C-0006 for system engineering, integration and test support for programs with increased security requirements. The modification includes an eight-month base, valued at $11,165,983, and six year-long options. Work will be performed in El Segundo, California, and is expected to be completed February 2027. Fiscal 2019 research, development, test and evaluation funds in the amount of $400,000 are being obligated at the time of award. Total cumulative face value of the contract is $142,307,233. Space and Missile Systems Center, Los Angeles Air Force Base, California, is the contracting activity. SRC Inc., North Syracuse, New York, has been awarded a $7,458,946 follow-on task order for baseline support services under the indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract FA7037-17-D-0001 for the sensor beam program. The contractor will research, analyze, technically document and perform reviews on electromagnetic systems, events and signatures required by all services and other U.S. agencies. Work will be performed at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, Texas, and is expected to be completed Aug. 1, 2021. Fiscal 2020 operations and maintenance funds in the amount of $7,314,490 are being obligated at the time of award. Acquisition Management and Integration Center-Detachment 2, Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, Texas, is the contracting activity. NAVY Huntington Ingalls Industries - Newport News Shipbuilding, Newport News, Virginia, is awarded a $36,566,645 cost-plus-fixed-fee option exercise modification to previously awarded contract N00024-20-C-2109 for engineering, technical, trade and program management support of industrial type work for operational and decommissioning submarines, submarines undergoing availabilities/conversion, special mission submersibles and submarine support facilities. Work will be performed in Newport News, Virginia (90%); Kings Bay, Georgia (3%), Bremerton, Washington (2%); Pearl Harbor, Hawaii (2%); Kittery, Maine (2%); and Groton, Connecticut (1%). This contract includes advanced submarine research and development, including studies to support the future development, production and sustainment phases of the platforms. Work is expected to be completed by September 2022. This contract was not competitively procured. Fiscal 2020 other procurement (Navy) funding in the amount of $5,461,081 will be obligated at time of award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity. L3 Technologies Inc. KEO, Northampton, Massachusetts, is awarded a $25,713,600 cost-plus-incentive-fee contract for engineering and technical services for the design, development, testing, system support and production of submarine photonics masts. This contract includes options which, if exercised, will bring the cumulative value of this contract to $135,810,491. Work will be performed in Northampton, Massachusetts, and is expected to be completed by June 2025. Fiscal 2020 shipbuilding and conversion (Navy) funding in the amount of $25,514,600; and fiscal 2020 research, development, test and evaluation funding in the amount of $199,000 will be obligated at time of award. Funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity (N00024-20-C-6249). Bristol General Contractors LLC, Anchorage, Alaska, is awarded a $22,974,412 firm-fixed-price contract for the Mission Training Complex at Shaw Air Force Base. Work will be performed in Sumter, South Carolina. The work to be performed provides for the construction of a small standard design mission training complex, to include the following: security access facility, tactical operations center pads, building information systems, energy monitoring and control system connection and intrusion detection system installation. Work is expected to be complete by May 2022. Fiscal 2018 military construction contract funds in the amount of $22,974,412 are obligated on this award and will expire at the end of fiscal 2023. This contract was competitively procured via the Navy Electronic Commerce Online website and four proposals were received. The Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Southeast, Jacksonville, Florida, is the contracting activity (N69450-20-C-0040). R. A. Burch Construction Co. Inc.,* Ramona, California, is awarded an $8,359,504 firm-fixed-price task order (N62473-20-F-4857) under a multiple award construction contract for the design and construction to renovate Building F at Naval Air Station North Island (NASNI), Naval Base Coronado. The task order also contains one planned modification, which, if issued will increase cumulative task order value to $9,045,991. Work will be performed in San Diego, California. The work to be performed includes all services, labor, materials and equipment necessary to design and build critical infrastructure to support installation and renovation to Building F at NASNI. The project also includes interior improvements to create additional office space on the north side of the building, landscape improvements for the southern courtyard and provide exposed ceilings in the building. The planned modification, if issued, provide for furniture, fixtures and equipment. Work is expected to be completed by January 2022. Fiscal 2020 operations and maintenance (Navy) contract funds in the amount of $8,359,504 are obligated on this award and will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. Five proposals were received for this task order. The Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Southwest, San Diego, California, is the contracting activity (N62473-15-D-2485). DEFENSE LOGISTICS AGENCY New Market Veterans,* New York, New York (SPE1C1-20-D-1296, $15,061,167); Big Apple Visual Group,* New York, New York (SPE1C1-20-D-1294, $14,604,768); and Hilo Enterprises,* McLean, Virginia (SPE1C1-20-D-1295, $13,235,571), have each been awarded a maximum firm-fixed-price, indefinite-quantity contract under solicitation SPE1C1-20-R-0102 for surgical masks. These were competitive acquisitions with 98 offers received. They are five-month contracts with no option periods. Locations of performance are Virginia, New York, China, and Taiwan, with a Dec. 31, 2020, ordering period end date. Using customer is Health and Human Services. Type of appropriation is fiscal 2020 defense working capital funds. The contracting activity is the Defense Logistics Agency Troop Support, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. DEFENSE ADVANCED RESEARCH PROJECTS AGENCY Mercury Defense Systems Inc., Cypress, California, was awarded a $7,280,300 modification (P00006) to previously awarded contract HR0011-18-C-0133 for additional in-scope work on a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency research project. Work will be performed in Cypress, California, with an expected completion date of October 2022. Fiscal 2020 research, development, test and evaluation funds in the amount of $2,208,097 are being obligated at time of award. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Arlington, Virginia, is the contracting activity. *Small Business https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Contracts/Contract/Article/2246455/source/GovDelivery/
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7 octobre 2019 | International, Aérospatial

Opinion: Why Finland Should Pay Close Attention To U.S. Fighter Bids
Christopher Kojm Finland is coming up on a key decision in 2021: the selection of combat aircraft to replace its existing squadrons of F-18s. The acquisition will be the largest government procurement in Finland's history. Cost will be one factor; capability will be even more important. Yet the most important consideration will be its overall contribution to Finland's security. The decision is not just about buying aircraft, it is also about building partnerships. Last year Finland solicited aircraft bids, and this year it received them from five manufacturers. The proposed multirole fighters are the Dassault Rafale (France), Eurofighter Typhoon (Great Britain), Saab Gripen (Sweden) and the Lockheed Martin F-35 and Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet (both from the U.S.). As the Finnish Air Force makes clear, it will aim for “the best comprehensive solution” to meet Finland's needs. It will examine security of supply, life-cycle costs, industrial participation and military capability, and the defense ministry will conduct a security and defense policy assessment. Finland will spend the next year in detailed negotiations with the manufacturers before they submit their final tenders next summer. Sophisticated companies in a competitive business will make every effort to meet Finland's requirements. It is highly likely that Finland will receive very good offers on excellent aircraft. So how should Finland choose? The country is making a decision about its security for decades to come. On this basis, it should give most careful attention to the offers from the U.S. Why? For three reasons: 1. Past performance. Finland made a bold move after the collapse of the Soviet Union, deciding for the first time to acquire advanced aircraft from the U.S. This dramatic turn to the West came two years before its decision to join the European Union. Finland's adoption of the F-18 aircraft opened the door to many security partnerships—with the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. writ large and NATO. Finland has conducted numerous operations with NATO and U.S. counterparts, and its defense forces are world-class. As noted by the U.S. Air Force chief of staff after he flew with Finnish F-18 pilots: “Finland is as good as anybody we've flown with; just exceptional quality. . . . What does that equal when we're added together?” 2. Present partnerships. Finland participates in over 60 international military exercises and training events per year on land, at sea and in the air. The most important exercises involve the U.S. and NATO. Given Russia's seizure of Crimea and eastern Ukraine, these exercises send exactly the right message. As Defense Minister Jussi Niinisto notes: “Today, the Finnish Defense Forces are more capable and more interoperable than they have ever been. That makes us effective in looking after our own security and a solid partner for other EU member states and NATO countries.” 3. Future risks. No one can spell out in detail what security challenges Finland will face in the coming decades. Crises can erupt suddenly. But Finland's strategy for managing risk is sound: a rock-solid commitment to territorial defense and domestic resilience, paired with international partnerships. Decisions in support of that strategy should aim at deepening Finland's ties with its most consequential security partner, the U.S. Decisions that would diminish those ties undermine Finland's strategy. Some will say you cannot trust U.S. President Donald Trump. His words offend. Yet look to America's actions: The previous administration signed a defense cooperation agreement with Finland, and the Trump administration is working with energy to implement it. Some say U.S. attention will drift. Yet America's global power rests on its network of alliances and partners. The more Russia looms as a threat, the more the U.S. needs its partners. Mutual security interests are driving Finland and the U.S. closer together. When the chips are down, Finland will provide for its own defense, as it always has. When it looks to partnerships to augment its self-defense and security, it should look first to the U.S. https://aviationweek.com/combat-aircraft/opinion-why-finland-should-pay-close-attention-us-fighter-bids

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Targeting the future of the DoD’s controversial Project Maven initiative

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Dassault Systemes hikes profit target as subscriptions surge | Reuters French software maker Dassault Systemes on Wednesday hiked its 2023 profit outlook after a surge in subscription sales in the third quarter, sending its shares up 6%.

Dassault Systemes hikes profit target as subscriptions surge | Reuters
French software maker Dassault Systemes on Wednesday hiked its 2023 profit outlook after a surge in subscription sales in the third quarter, sending its shares up 6%.