Pentagon's "Thunderforge" Initiative: AI Agents to Revolutionize Military Planning and Operations

Pentagon Signs Deal to "Deploy AI Agents for Military Use"

The Pentagon has signed a deal with AI company Scale AI, in an initiative it's calling "Thunderforge," to use AI agents for military planning and operations. The team-up, described as a "flagship program," is a notable development given how divisive the topic of the use of AI in warfare has proven -- and how many of the tech's nagging shortcomings have yet to be meaningfully addressed. Yet the encroachment of AI tech within the military has been unmistakable. Both Google and OpenAI have walked back rules forbidding the use of their AI tech for weapons development and surveillance, showing that Silicon Valley is opening up to the idea of having its tools be used by the military. Just last month, a senior Pentagon official told Defense One that the US military was looking to move away from funding research on the topic of autonomous killer robots and investing in actual AI-powered weaponry instead. And it goes beyond the Pentagon. Late last year, OpenAI also announced a partnership with Palmer Luckey's defense tech company Anduril to focus on "improving the nation's counter-unmanned aircraft systems (CUAS) and their ability to detect, assess and respond to potentially lethal aerial threats in real-time." Basically, though, the pitch is a familiar one for the AI industry. As part of Scale AI's multimillion-dollar deal, as CNBC reports, the firm is looking for ways to accelerate the military's ability to churn through data. "Thunderforge marks a decisive shift toward AI-powered, data-driven warfare, ensuring US forces can anticipate and respond to threats with speed and precision," the US Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) wrote in a statement. The system will allow "planners to more rapidly synthesize vast amounts of information, generate multiple courses of action, and conduct AI-powered wargaming to anticipate and respond to evolving threats," the DIU wrote. According to a statement by the program's lead Bryce Goodman, there's a "fundamental mismatch between the speed of modern warfare and our ability to respond." "Our AI solutions will transform today's military operating process and modernize American defense," said Scale AI founder and CEO Alexandr Wang in the statement. Scale AI had already signed a contract with the Department of Defense's Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office last year to test and evaluate large language models. But giving an AI agency is a considerable step up over an LLM that could have plenty more far-reaching implications, particularly when it comes to military planning and operations. Whether Scale AI's tech will allow the military to make faster decisions -- and without hallucinating anything that throws operations into chaos -- remains to be seen. One ominous data point: when Stanford researchers tested how OpenAI's GPT-4 LLM responded when told it was representing a country inside of a wargame simulation, it proved to be particularly violent and unpredictable. "A lot of countries have nuclear weapons," the otherwise unmodified AI model told the researchers, per their paper. "Some say they should disarm them, others like to posture. We have it! Let's use it."

The Pentagon is upping its bet on AI. Here's what it means for the military

The Department of Defense is majorly scaling up artificial intelligence in the military in the hopes of faster decision-making in warfare. The Department of Defense's Defense Innovation Unit awarded artificial intelligence giant Scale AI a prototype contract for "Thunderforge," the department's flagship program to integrate AI into military planning and operations. "Thunderforge marks a decisive shift toward AI-powered, data-driven warfare, ensuring that U.S. forces can anticipate and respond to threats with speed and precision," the Department said in a press release on Wednesday. Although the financials of the contract were not disclosed, CNBC (CMCSA+1.81%) reported that it was a multi-million dollar deal. Besides Scale AI, the Thunderforge system will also include defense company Anduril's Lattice open software platform, and LLM technology by Microsoft (MSFT-1.25%). The Department has been working to get AI capabilities into defense operations since 2021, including through the use of autonomous weapons and AI-powered computer vision to identify airstrike targets. But Thunderforge is its first significant step into giving AI a more prominent role in operational decision-making across the military by integrating large language models, dubbed AI agents, in its workflows. AI will be used in military campaign development and resource allocation, wargaming simulations, planning scenarios and proposed courses of action, and strategic assessments. U.S. Central Command's chief tech officer Schuyler Moore told Bloomberg in 2024 that Centcom had experimented with AI recommendation engines in late 2023 and found that it "frequently fell short" of humans when proposing orders of attack. The Department will first deploy the system within the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM), out of Hawaii, and the U.S. European Command (EUCOM), based in Germany, before scaling it across the rest of the eleven combatant commands. Humans will oversee the AI agents, Scale AI shared in a press release on Wednesday, but that has not quelled worries over the technology being deployed in certain fields. "We all probably suffer from automation bias, which is this idea that we are tempted to and often will accept the recommendation, for example, that a large language model spits out or prediction that one of these systems is making, because we feel as though the system must have more information than we do, and must be processing it and sequencing it and ordering it better than we could," legal scholar and former associate White House counsel Ashley Deeks told Quartz. What exacerbates the problem even more is that AI systems are like "black boxes," according to Deeks, in that it is tough for users to understand how or why it reaches certain conclusions. "I hope that the Pentagon itself is thinking about how to train people to resist excessive automation bias when their gut and their experience has told them to do 'x' and the system is telling them to do 'y'," Deeks said. Scale AI CEO and founder Alexandr Wang has been praising the merits of AI-assisted warfare for some time now. Wang took out a full page ad in the Washington Post asking President Donald Trump to invest more to "win the AI war" in January, and then defended his opinion later during a February summit in Qatar, where he said he is concerned that China will use AI to "leapfrog" the military capacity of "Western powers." China has reportedly made AI military power a strategic priority, although some experts believe Beijing still faces significant obstacles in taking full advantage of the technology. A number of militaries around the world have used AI to assist their military operations and identify targets, most notably Israel in its war in Gaza, and by both sides of the Russia-Ukraine war.

Pentagon to give AI agents a role in planning, operations

The American military has signed a deal with Scale AI to give artificial intelligence, as far as we can tell, its most prominent role in the defense sector to date - with AI agents to now be used in planning and operations. The value of the contract, awarded as part of the US Defense Innovation Unit's Thunderforge project, wasn't specified, though given its considerable scope it's likely to be a large one. According to data labeling and AI training outfit Scale today, the contract will see it leading a team including Palmer Luckey's Anduril and Copilot-obsessed Microsoft to implement the US Department of Defense's "first foray into integrating AI agents in and across military workflows." According to the DIU's Thunderforge project leader Bryce Goodman, transforming military decisionmaking with AI is something that's pivotal to sustaining US military dominance. Thunderforge brings AI-powered analysis and automation to operational and strategic planning "Today's military planning processes rely on decades-old technology and methodologies, creating a fundamental mismatch between the speed of modern warfare and our ability to respond," Goodman said. "Thunderforge brings AI-powered analysis and automation to operational and strategic planning, allowing decision-makers to operate at the pace required for emerging conflicts." The end goal of the project, the DIU said, is to help military decision-makers pore over and assess more info more quickly and make judgement calls more rapidly based on AI suggestions. Thunderforge AI will be used to support mission planning and campaign development, help allocate resources at the theater level, and make strategic assessments. We're given the impression humans make all the final decisions, albeit ones guided by software. The AI agents - a fancy word for bot - can carry out table-top war-gaming to simulate outcomes for leaders, plan scenarios, "and refine proposed courses of action," the DIU said. It appears the system will be tested in the real world, with both the DIU and Scale indicating it's rolling out at some unspecified time to the US Indo-Pacific Command headquartered in Hawaii, and to what for now is the US European Command based in Germany. The Pentagon has plans to scale it across all 11 of its combatant commands after its initial deployment. ... a decisive shift toward AI-powered, data-driven warfare, ensuring US forces can anticipate and respond to threats with speed and precision "Thunderforge marks a decisive shift toward AI-powered, data-driven warfare, ensuring US forces can anticipate and respond to threats with speed and precision," the DIU said. Anduril's role in Thunderforge will see it supplying its Lattice software platform, while Azure giant Microsoft will be handling the actual large language models. Scale's role will be in leveraging its agentic applications and generative AI evaluation expertise, the DIU said. "Our AI solutions will transform today's military operating process and modernize American defense," said Scale founder and CEO Alexandr Wang. The use of AI for defense purposes has been a divisive issue in the tech world, with Googlers fired last year for protesting the Chocolate Factory's role in providing cloud services to the Israeli Ministry of Defense, and Microsoft employees terminated last month for making similar complaints. Google has walked back previous promises to not use AI for weapons development, spying and violating international norms, as has OpenAI. The American military has been increasingly integrating artificial intelligence into its operations, with Scale even scoring a Dept of Defense contract last year to work on integrating generative AI for various non-combat purposes, such as compiling after-action reports, measuring performance, and the like. As with all things AI related, there's the question of the safety and reliability of LLMs and similar machine-learning models, as well as their ability to return real and correct information, something neither Scale nor the DIU addressed in their statements about Thunderforge. Scale did mention that Thunderforge AI will always act "under human oversight," but that's the only mention of safety by either organization. We reached out to both Scale and the DIU for further details, and as yet haven't heard back. ®

Pentagon signs AI deal to help commanders plan military maneuvers

Start-up Scale AI will work with weapons maker Anduril and draw on tech from Microsoft and Google for the "Thunderforge" initiative. U.S. military commanders will use artificial intelligence tools to plan and help execute movements of ships, planes and other assets under a contract called "Thunderforge" led by start-up Scale AI, the company said Wednesday. The deal comes as the Defense Department and the U.S. tech industry are becoming more closely entwined. Scale will use AI tools from Microsoft and Google to help build Thunderforge, which is also being integrated into start-up weapons developer Anduril's systems. The Thunderforge project aims to find ways to use AI to speed up military decision-making during peace and wartime. Commanders' roles have become more challenging as military operations and equipment have become more complex and technology-centric, with missions involving drones and conventional forces spanning land, sea and air, as well as cyberattacks. Under the new contract, Scale will develop AI programs that commanders could ask for recommendations about how to most efficiently move resources throughout a region. The technology could combine data from intelligence sources and battlefield sensors with information on the positions of friendly and enemy planes and ships. Today, commanders must often make decisions based on information from various staff officers and sensor systems. "The planning and operational process for the U.S. military has not evolved since Napoleon," said Dan Tadross, the head of federal delivery at Scale who previously served with the Marines and researched military applications of AI for the Navy. After years of theorizing that AI could help military planning, the technology is now at the point where it can actually be helpful, Tadross said in an interview. The Thunderforge contract was awarded by the Pentagon's Defense Innovation Unit, a Silicon Valley-based division aimed at helping tech companies integrate their products into the military. The technology will initially be deployed with the U.S. military's European Command and Indo-Pacific Command. A solicitation for the Thunderforge contract issued by the Defense Innovation Unit last year said it would use generative AI, the technology underpinning chatbots like ChatGPT. It listed capabilities of interest including generating intelligence summaries and draft operations orders, while also providing audit trails for AI recommendations. Military officials are trying to increase use of AI software and autonomous drones and ships to help the United States stand up to China as Beijing flexes its military might in the Pacific. A wave of military tech start-ups challenging established defense contractors have won contracts from the Pentagon in recent years. Scale, founded in 2016 by the son of two Los Alamos National Laboratory physicists, has aggressively pitched itself as a company that can help the United States win a geopolitical battle with China. Tech giants seeking new markets have found the military to be a willing partner as it attempts to upgrade its technology to match that of the private sector. Some companies such as Google that used to be cautious about military contracting have recently become more comfortable with the Defense Department. The company recently dropped a pledge not to build AI for weapons or surveillance. Arms control advocates have campaigned against military use of AI, arguing that humans must maintain direct control of weapons to guarantee their use stays within ethical bounds. The U.S. military and tech companies working with it have charged ahead with automation projects, arguing that humans will retain meaningful control and that the nation's enemies are building AI tools of their own. Tadross said the Thunderforge project is meant to help commanders with planning and strategizing and not to support front-line soldiers making decisions about using weapons.

US Military Taps 'Thunderforge' AI for Wargaming and Planning Operations - Decrypt

As geopolitical tensions rise, the U.S. Department of Defense is expanding its integration of artificial intelligence to stay ahead and turning to AI agents to simulate confrontations with foreign adversaries. On Wednesday, the Defense Innovation Unit, a Department of Defense organization, awarded a prototype contract to San Francisco-based Scale AI to build Thunderforge, an AI platform designed to enhance battlefield decision-making. "[Thunderforge] will be the flagship program within the DoD for AI-based military planning and operations," Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang said Wednesday on X. Launched in 2016 by Wang and Lucy Guo, Scale AI helps speed up development by providing labeled data and the infrastructure needed to train AI models. To develop Thunderforge, Scale AI will work with Microsoft, Google, and American defense contractor Anduril Industries, Wang said. Thunderforge will initially be deployed to the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, which operates in the Pacific Ocean, Indian Ocean, and parts of Asia, and the U.S. European Command, which oversees Europe, the Middle East, the Arctic, and the Atlantic Ocean. Thunderforge will support campaign strategy, resource allocation, and strategic assessments, according to a statement on Wednesday. "Thunderforge brings AI-powered analysis and automation to operational and strategic planning, allowing decision-makers to operate at the pace required for emerging conflicts," DIU Thunderforge Program Lead Bryce Goodman said in the statement. AI-focused or "Agentic Warfare" represents a shift from traditional warfare, where experts manually coordinate scenarios and make decisions over days, to an AI-driven model where decisions can be made in minutes. Ensuring AI performs reliably in real-world defense applications is particularly challenging, especially when faced with unpredictable scenarios and ethical considerations. "These AIs are trained on collected historical data and simulated data, which may not cover all the possible situations in the real world," Professor of Computer Science at USC Sean Ren told Decrypt. "Additionally, defense operations are high-stakes use cases, so we need the AI to understand human values and make ethical decisions, which is still under active research." Challenges and safeguards As the founder of Los Angeles-based decentralized AI developer Sahara AI, Ren said building realistic AI-driven wargaming simulations comes with significant challenges in accuracy and adaptability. "I think two key aspects make this possible: collecting a large amount of real-world data for reference when building wargaming simulations and incorporating various constraints from both physical and human aspects," he said. To create adaptive and strategic AI for wargaming simulations, Ren said it's crucial to use training methods that allow the system to learn from experience and refine its decision-making over time. "Reinforcement learning is a model training technique that can learn from the 'outcome/feedback' of a series of actions," he said. "In wargaming simulations, the AI can take exploratory actions and look for positive or negative outcomes from the simulated environment," he added. "Depending on how comprehensive the simulated environment is, this is helpful for the AI to explore various situations exhaustively." With the expanding role of AI in military strategy, the Pentagon is forming more deals with private AI companies such as Scale AI to strengthen its capabilities. While the idea of AI used by militaries may conjure images of "The Terminator," military AI developers like San Diego-based Kratos Defense say that fear is unfounded. "In the military context, we're mostly seeing highly advanced autonomy and elements of classical machine learning, where machines aid in decision-making, but this does not typically involve decisions to release weapons," Kratos Defense President of Unmanned Systems Division, Steve Finley, previously told Decrypt. "AI substantially accelerates data collection and analysis to form decisions and conclusions." One of the biggest concerns when discussing the integration of AI into military operations is ensuring that human oversight remains a fundamental part of decision-making, especially in high-stakes scenarios. "If a weapon is involved or a maneuver risks human life, a human decision-maker is always in the loop," Finley said. "There's always a safeguard -- a 'stop' or 'hold' -- for any weapon release or critical maneuver."

Scale AI announces multimillion-dollar defense deal, a major step in U.S. military automation

Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang testifies before a House Armed Services Subcommittee on Cyber, Information Technology, and Innovation hearing about battlefield AI on Capitol Hill in Washington, July 18, 2023. Scale AI on Wednesday announced a landmark deal with the Department of Defense that could be a turning point in the controversial use of artificial intelligence tools in the military. The AI giant, which provides training data to key AI players like OpenAI, Google, Microsoft and Meta, has been awarded a prototype contract from the Defense Department for "Thunderforge," the DOD's "flagship program" to use AI agents for U.S. military planning and operations, according to the releases. It's a multimillion-dollar deal, according to a source familiar with the situation, who requested anonymity due to the confidential nature of the contract. Spearheaded by the Defense Innovation Unit, the program will incorporate a team of "global technology partners," including Anduril and Microsoft, to develop and deploy AI agents. Uses will include modeling and simulation, decision-making support, proposed courses of action and even automated workflows. The program's rollout will begin with U.S. Indo-Pacific Command and U.S. European Command and will then be scaled to other areas. "Thunderforge marks a decisive shift toward AI-powered, data-driven warfare, ensuring that U.S. forces can anticipate and respond to threats with speed and precision," according to a release from the DIU, which also said that the program will "accelerate decision-making" and spearhead "AI-powered wargaming." "Our AI solutions will transform today's military operating process and modernize American defense. ... DIU's enhanced speed will provide our nation's military leaders with the greatest technological advantage," CEO Alexandr Wang said in a statement. Both Scale and the DIU emphasized speed and how AI will help military units make much faster decisions. The DIU mentioned the need for speed (or synonyms) eight times in its release. Doug Beck, DIU director, emphasized "machine speed" in a statement, while Bryce Goodman, DIU Thunderforge Program Lead and contractor, said there's currently a "fundamental mismatch between the speed of modern warfare and our ability to respond." Though Scale mentions that the program will operate under human oversight, the DIU did not highlight that point.