AUSTIN, Texas — Technology is taking over, and at this year’s South By Southwest (SXSW), one event showcased some tools aimed at advancing the U.S. military’s defenses.
Drones with the capability of being operated from afar, as well artificial intelligence with the ability to translate 100-plus foreign languages, were shown during the event hosted by the Mission Acceleration Network (MAC), a grassroots organization.
Executive Director Denise Ryser said the network works with companies large and small in an effort to bring innovators into the battlefield.
“Talk to warfighters and operators, and say, ‘What do you need to be more successful?' and then we go out and find the innovators that may be able to solve that,” Ryser said, adding, “I think it would be naïve to not to think that that is a real threat, to not stay ahead of the curve, but I think the U.S. is pretty resilient in this space."
Allison Yarborough, the Vice President of Growth at the software company Lilt, explained how their focus is on artificial intelligence (AI) through a model with the ability to translate foreign languages.
“Agencies within the U.S. that are working on a global scale, they have a very hard time translating the volume of information that they process in foreign languages,” Yarborough said.
Yarborough explained the reason for the delayed tool in the U.S.
“There were just limitations from the human capabilities before that that sort of hit that gap and now that there are these tools that you can use, they enable massive gains on kind of what we could previously do," Yarborough said.
As for the concerns that come with AI, Yarborough noted with the model that is already being used by the likes of the Department of Defense, the company can control what the model learns with a minimal level of control.
An expert on technology and innovation from Stanford University who was at the event explained that the sole focus is on the U.S. not falling behind other countries.
"We are behind. We in some ways we can say that we're losing, but we haven't lost yet. So the stakes are high. We need to get our game on meaning to find a way to get that commercial technology into the hands of warfighters fast and rapidly deploy to speed scale,” Joe Felter, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for south and southeast Asia, said.
During the innovation event, demonstrators protested the military’s involvement at SXSW. People chanted “Free Palestine” and demanded a ceasefire in reference to the Israel-Hamas war. The group claimed that defense contractors who supply weapons to Israel are part of festival events.
The U.S. Army is a sponsor of SXSW.