Daniel P. Driscoll

I think my perspective is typically to date all of human history, the vast majority of it has unfolded with human beings on land.

Sure, humans are at sea sometimes, sometimes in their air, sometimes they're in space.

But to date, there may be an inflection point for that too.

Humans on land is where the story of humanity is unfolding.

And so I think if you think about conflict, if you think about war, I don't actually think we think that there will be a decrease in the number of humans involved as soldiers.

I think those humans will be empowered with all sorts of tools that they just didn't have before.

And I think the requirements of those humans will be different, where with the 101st yesterday, one of the things we were talking about is we have this software factory as an army.

And I was a little hesitant at first to think, why are soldiers doing software development for us?

But a lot of what it is is just empowering and training our soldiers to know what digital tools exist and how can they use those tools to achieve their commander's intent.

And so if you start to think about it that way, after seeing it, I was like, oh, man, maybe we should be training some number of soldiers per platoon to know what they can do, because what that fight probably looks like in the future is getting soldiers on to the or near the objective, having them conceal themselves,

having them figure out what assets exist in the community or the area where we're sending them.

How do they tie in and bring in those assets, make it part of their toolkit, and then how do they fight from there?

And so that, to date, I mean, quantum computing could change this, and generative AI models could eventually get to a point where it's effective as a human brain.

But until that day comes, or if it comes,

It is going to be an American soldier innovating on the ground with their peers and figuring out how do they do whatever it takes to accomplish the mission.

And I would bet on humans in that instance every single time, empowered with these tools.

Because one of the things that is worrisome about the digital environment is

If you look at what's happening with drones, the more tech-savvy and the more digital a drone is, the easier it is to jam, the easier it is to take down.

And we were talking about this at breakfast.

It's actually these wired, old-school drones that are proving very effective