What is ChatGPT?
ChatGPT is an example of a large language model (LLM). It was trained on a large dataset of information from the Internet, which it uses to generate responses to various queries.
The large volume of data that ChatGPT was trained on provides it with an understanding of a wide variety of types of content. The tool is capable of responding to prompts, summarizing text, and performing limited translation and programming.
While many organizations have already explored how ChatGPT can be applied to their operations, the tool offers many promising applications for the defense industry that have yet to be tested.
ChatGPT Effects on Aircraft
ChatGPT has the ability to parse large volumes of text data and translate between voice and text communications. This can have a few positive impacts on aircraft operation, including the following:
- Safety: ChatGPT and similar tools have the potential to analyze large volumes of text data and extract insights. This can be used to automatically analyze flight logs, maintenance reports, and weather forecasts to identify potential risks to an aircraft or hazards that may become apparent in-flight.
- Communication Efficiency: ChatGPT can automatically transcribe radio messages between flight personnel and ground control. This can help reduce miscommunication and enable better communication across language barriers.
- Machine Translation: ChatGPT has the ability to act as a translator between human language and the instruction sets used by various devices. This allows pilots to more easily and efficiently communicate with aircraft systems to speed up response and decrease cognitive load.
Effects on Cybersecurity and Mission-critical Operations
ChatGPT has both positive and negative implications for cybersecurity. The reason for this is that it can be used both defensively and offensively.
On the defensive side, ChatGPT can be used to secure applications by identifying vulnerabilities and other errors in the code. It can also be used to support security operations by analyzing log files and performing similar operations.
However, ChatGPT can also be used to support offensive activities by cybercriminals against an organization. For example, an attacker can be used to develop malware, craft phishing emails, or perform analysis to help identify vulnerabilities in an organization’s software, systems, or processes.
Effects on Administrative Defense Roles
The defense industrial base (DIB) is subject to numerous regulations that govern its operations. Throughout the process of bidding on and executing a contract, an organization needs to generate proposals, contracts, and reports that comply with various requirements.
While it takes specialized knowledge and a background in government contracting to generate these documents, ChatGPT can help with the heavy lifting. The tool is capable of generating a skeleton for government contracts and other documents, enabling users to simply fill in the details.
Administrative defense roles supported by ChatGPT can be more efficient, and the tool may be able to identify and correct errors in final reports as well. This increased efficiency may also enable small and medium sized businesses to effectively compete for government contracts by reducing the administrative load associated with them.
Effects on Software Programming and Hardware Development
ChatGPT has already demonstrated an ability to streamline the software programming process. The AI tool is capable of independently generating simple code and identifying errors in application code provided to it.
These capabilities can help streamline the software and hardware development process and help reduce potential errors. ChatGPT can be used to develop frameworks and simple components for applications and can ease the process of troubleshooting errors and identifying potential vulnerabilities in existing code.
Effects on Military Mission Planning, Modeling, and Simulation
Military mission planning, modeling, and simulation involves taking a premise and building out a collection of plans and simulations supporting it. Building a strategy from a premise can be time-consuming and involve the creation of numerous supporting documents.
ChatGPT can help to automate and streamline this process. From a well-designed prompt, it can define a scenario for the simulation and the core plan for it. From this plan, it can also generate the supporting documents used to execute the simulation.
ChatGPT can also take an active role in the simulation itself. It could act as an enemy combatant, generate random changes for the players to respond to, or provide analysis and commentary on the strategies developed and used by participants in the simulation.
A Careful Approach to ChatGPT
ChatGPT can be a powerful tool, but it’s not a perfect one. The tool is prone to “hallucinations”, where it generates incorrect data.
ChatGPT also introduces data security issues for an organization. Data typed into the tool may be used as training data for the tool in the future and may be shared with other users. As a result, ChatGPT cannot be used with sensitive or classified information–yet.
That said, ChatGPT has a wide range of potential applications. Even when working with non-sensitive information — such as generating templates for contracts and reports — ChatGPT can bring significant value to the defense and other safety-critical industries.
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