Additionally, to keep sailors focused on completing their most important missions and not endangering human lives, naval leaders want AI to take on boring, stupid, and dangerous missions. “We want seafarers to spend time understanding what the information means, considering alternatives and considering courses of action,” Edgin stressed. “We don’t want them to spend their time trying to put data into a common separation value or operate a swivel chair. So if you look at the AI space now, there’s a lot of things available to us, a lot of things that can automate processes, a lot of things that can automate data integration, and free up the seafarer to do what matters most.”
Edgin emphasized the importance of private sector individuals and the research community working with Navy officials to create clear and transparent lines of communication. This collaboration ideally allows each party to inform the other’s needs and leads to the development and deployment of next-generation capabilities, especially those that cannot be envisioned today. Currently, the Navy lacks the vocabulary to describe these types of futuristic technologies that the Navy desires, and this partnership could help eliminate this complexity, Edgin said.
“That’s the partnership, the partnership between industry and academia and seafarers, where we can start imagining new futures and how we can use things like agent AI and general AI that is depicted in movies. What it takes is that idea and making it a reality,” Edgin said.
