据《C4ISRNET》网4月22日报道

美军人工智能专家建议，国防部要对非传统企业更加透明、更加畅通，以吸纳创新技术。在C4ISRNET的21日会议上，美国空军与麻省理工学院人工智能“加速器”机构运营总监麦克·卡南少校称，国防部在未来发布征询公告时要面向初创企业，描述需求要更加精确和清晰，以便企业更准确理解需求。国防部官员已经认识到，面对正在来临的竞争年代，竞争所需的技术并不在传统的军工企业，而是来自于类似硅谷的初创企业，但对这些新企业，国防部的决策时间太长，而这些小企业需要现金流维持发展。国防部国防创新单元（DIU）人工智能与机器学习商业执行官萨拉·皮尔森称，这也是该机构的经验，所合作的硅谷初创企业“难以置信的羸弱”，尚未搭建面向联邦政府的营销团队，需要政府快速答复“是或否”，而不是让这些小企业处在云里雾里。DIU的做法是努力在30天内对初创企业建议书进行答复，部分确保了国防部与初创企业间的健康生态。2020年，针对23项征询公告，DIU平均收到了初创企业提交的41份建议书，比2019年增加了50%。皮尔森建议，国防部要对初创企业尽可能地透明和畅通，才能吸引和凝聚更多的创新企业和技术。

AI leaders: DoD must be more transparent with startups

Andrew Eversden，C4ISRNET,APRIL22

If the Defense Department wants to attract more innovative companies in areas such as artificial intelligence, it needs to communicate requirements better, AI experts say. (Zapp2Photo/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Defense needs to be more transparent and communicative with nontraditional companies to bring in their innovative technologies, artificial intelligence experts said April 21 at the C4ISRNET Conference.

That requires the department to more accurately and clearly articulate its requirements in solicitations or through public events.

“The limits of our language mean the limits of our world,” said Air Force Maj. Mike Kanaan, director of operations at the USAF-MIT AI Accelerator. “If you weren’t being precise with your language, how can somebody who hasn’t traditionally worked with you, or doesn’t sit in your niche business really understand what it is you’re saying?”

Officials across the Pentagon recognize that the technologies that the department needs to stay competitive in the coming decades aren’t under development by traditional defense primes, but instead will come from startup companies, often in Silicon Valley. But the problem remains that the Pentagon’s acquisition process takes too long for startups, which need cash to stay afloat.

That’s the experience at the Defense Innovation Unit, the department’s Silicon Valley-based startup outreach arm. Many businesses that that organization works with are “incredibly lean” and haven’t established federal sales teams, according to Sarah Pearson, commercial executive for artificial intelligence and machine learning at the DIU.

“For them, it’s all about ROI [return on investment], where they put their time and what’s the output for that time,” Pearson said. “Even with companies that they … want to further the national security mission, and they have these altruistic or patriotic ambitions, they can’t sacrifice private sector growth. They can’t sacrifice that revenue.”

One step that the department can take is to say “yes or no” to smaller companies sooner, instead of leaving them in a cloud of uncertainty for a long time. DIU strives to respond to startups’ proposals within 30 days, Pearson said, part of an effort to keep the DoD-startup “ecosystem” healthy.

“There’s a piece on transparency and communication that will keep that ecosystem healthy and keep industry interested in participating,” she said.

DIU’s outreach to commercial industry is growing as well, according to its 2020 annual report. Last year, it received an average of 41 proposals across 23 solicitations last year — 50 percent higher than in 2019.

While DoD officials continue to grapple with how to attract and sustain nontraditional contractors for projects, Kanaan noted a positive example in the department’s Small Business Innovation Research program, which gives smaller companies research and development funding. The program helps companies better understand the department and its technological needs, he said.

Just because the department is trying to draw in more innovations from smaller companies, that doesn’t mean it will abandon traditional contractors, Kanaan said.

“It just means that the value proposition of bringing commercially relevant, interoperable deliveries has such a renewed vigor and emphasis, and I think that’s a good thing. The whole system should be working to bring us up to the most contemporary tech releases,” he said.

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