Marine Corps to use Artificial Intelligence to find new spec ops troops
I happened across an article on the use of Artificial Intelligence (link to Wikipedia about Artificial Intelligence) this week that first struck me as ludicrous. It seems the military could start using Artificial Intelligence to help decide who makes it into Marine special operations. (Article link.)
Being a bit skeptical, I read on. Mainly, I thought I’d mock what a dumb idea such a thing was. And ridicule the idiotic bean counters and bureaucrats who seemed naturally wired to mess up the tried-and-true, old way of doing things.
But the article describes why the military has been forced to consider the change. Essentially, it costs a ton of money to train a special ops soldier. (These days, they’re called MARSOC Raiders, but in my day they were called Force Recon Marines. But that’s a side tangent that’ll just make me feel old.)
Back to the point, besides a boatload of money, it also takes a SOLID two years, minimum, to train a MARSOC Raider (and that doesn’t count the boot camp, infantry training, and other stuff you must do even BEFORE you begin your MARSOC-specialized training).
Thus, you don’t want the hypothetical Sergeant Smith to get near the end of his MARSOC training and suddenly fail out of something. Or worse, decide that, “Well, ya know, maybe I’m not really enjoying this whole special ops, life-moving-at-a-100-mph thing after all.”
Not only would the Marine Corps lose that slot, but they lost the two years it’s going to take to get another shooter into that position.
According to the article, the AI will be used to study current Marines who have proven themselves to be successful in special operations, and who have lasted a long time in the highly demanding (and dangerous) jobs.
They’re trying to find certain characteristics. Maybe these types typically come from the South? Or from urban areas that lack many opportunities? Or from traditional families, with a strong support system? Or maybe from broken families, where as a youth the Marine had to be independent and look out for themselves?
Anyway, check out the article if it strikes your interest. Here’s the link again.
I’d love to hear your all’s thoughts on this. Does your company or industry use AI in anyway? And as a sidenote, maybe I need to use AI to decide what book I should write next!! (As a teaser, I think next week I’ll tell you what project I’m currently working on...)
That’s it from here, guys. Thanks for all your support! And hope you all have a great weekend!
Semper Fidelis,
Stan R. Mitchell
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Stan R. Mitchell is the author of nine, fast-paced novels. He’s sold more than 70,000 books and writes military action and mystery genre, mostly. He’s also a prior infantry Marine, who LOVES writing!! Click the link at left to check out his books.
