The head of the Army’s modernization-focused Futures Command said Thursday he’s “all in” on artificial intelligence’s potential ability to help inform commanders’ decisions, while cautioning that allowing the technology itself to make decisions “would be a disastrous mistake.”

“So when I get asked about things like AI, machine learning [and] quantum, I’m all in. I mean whoever figures that out is going to have an incredible, marked advantage, akin to like the nuclear arms race, space race. It’s that big of a deal. But at the same time, there are things that computers are never going to do,” Gen. James Rainey, the Army Futures Command (AFC) leader, said during remarks at the AFCEA TechNet Augusta event in Georgia. “As we go down this path very aggressively as fast as we can, we’ve got to make sure that we’re aiding commanders’ decision making, not trying to make decisions for commanders because that would be a disastrous mistake.”

Gen James E. Rainey accepts the position of Commanding General for Army Futures Command on October 4th, 2022 in Austin, Texas (US Army Photo by Patrick Hunter)

Rainey said the Army’s work with AI technologies should be focused on giving commanders “the ability to make more decisions, faster decisions and better decisions.”

“I used to say better and faster. And as I studied this, talking to people that are a lot smarter than me, in data-centric warfare there’s actually value in the pure number of decisions you make and the pace you can make them,” Rainey added.

Rainey provided a specific example on his thinking of how AI can be used to inform decisions rather than having the technology make those decisions.

“You come to a fork in the road — you can do it now, it’s not science fiction — you’re in your tank, your Bradley, you come to an intersection and you’ve got a data-driven, AI-informed screen that pops up and says, ‘Hey Rainey, 99 percent recommendation you go to the left. Go south. We know everything there is to know, go left.’ I would look at that and say, ‘Okay, if it’s that obvious the enemy has to know I’m going that way too, so I’m going to go right,’” Rainey said. “You’re not going to ever teach a computer to practice the art of command.”

To best harness potential uses for AI, machine learning and quantum computing, Rainey said the Army will require a more “data-centric approach to the network.”

“Even if all those things were possible now, we, the United States military and the Army, could not take advantage of that fully because our data is all over the place, it’s not [standardized], we don’t have access to it [and] we don’t have it labeled,” Rainey said.

The Army recently shifted its approach to network modernization efforts, with lead officials stating the move aligns with new principles set by Futures Command leadership focused around the network’s ability to provide assured voice capabilities, deliver a common operational picture that is data-driven and data-informed and the ability to conduct digital fires, as well as an overall goal to reduce network complexity at brigade and below levels (Defense Daily, May 5). 

The updated approach to Army network modernization includes shifting away from two-year capability drops to a more holistic effort that emphasizes flexibility and speed as it shifts to designing for the division as the “unit of action.”