USAF AI Strategy

Capt. Michael J. Kanaan, Co-Chair for Air Force Artificial Intelligence,
believes the Air Force needs more foreign language speakers in order to maintain dominance.

“The languages of computers themselves are as critically significant to the needs to the DoD as much as any of these traditionally viewed, non-native languages,” Kanaan says. “Python, Java, C++; they all have their unique vocabulary, and sets of grammatical and construct rules, just like any other language.”

As such, Kanaan believes that the languages of artificial intelligence algorithms can, and should, be taught to airmen as a mission-critical skill, just like Mandarin, Spanish or Arabic.

The same types of aptitude tests administered to determine airmen most suited to learn a foreign language can be used to find those with an aptitude for coding.

Kanaan believes those airmen fluent in the language of artificial intelligence will soon be creating algorithms working in the background to crunch the huge amounts of data produced by almost every Air Force mission.