Sam Altman recently stated, “We see a future where intelligence is a utility like electricity or water and people buy it from us on a meter and use it for whatever they want to use it for.” This sentence alone is of grave national security concern.
The “us” in the sentence accentuates the problem beyond any nations to a global concern, as it has the ability to distort the world order as we know it. Meanwhile, surveillance capitalism today, already accrues way more personal information to a very few social media corporates, than that held by any of the elitist intelligence agencies in the world. Now the corporates aspire for that ‘One ring to rule them all’, taking an analogy from the Lord of the Rings movies.
This trend leads to generations whose critical thinking faculty might be stunted or sub-optimal and on a downward spiral as their mental faculties won’t be exercised but outsourced. Should a group of corporates be allowed to hold such an AI ring?
Intelligence and mental capacity are anti-fragile concepts; they grow as they are exercised and challenged. Anti-fragile is a concept coined by Nassim Taleb, famous for his book, The Black Swan. He states, fragile are things that break under pressure, while anti-fragile grow and prosper under pressure, e.g. human muscles when exercised. Similarly, mental faculty and intelligence are also anti-fragile.
Today, AI has read up almost all the written texts and gulps every new one in seconds. Even many new books are today written completely by AI itself. Prompt engineering, or the art of asking the perfectly curated question to generative AI, to spill out the desired result, is today the apex engineering to pursue them all. Now, generative AI is the name of the software class that ChatGPT, Grok, Gemini, Claude, etc. belong to.
Intelligence and mental capacity are anti-fragile concepts; they grow as they are exercised and challenged. Anti-fragile is a concept coined by Nassim Taleb, famous for his book, The Black Swan. He states, fragile are things that break under pressure, while anti-fragile grow and prosper under pressure, e.g. human muscles when exercised. Similarly, mental faculty and intelligence are also anti-fragile
This national security threat the AI ring poses to every nation is not lost on the Indian military leadership. Even the Indian Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) has in the past spoken about the need for a “Scholar Warrior”.
In any kinetic war theatre, the fighter jet is usually considered the most advanced piece of technology. As the global threat landscape morphs with that new AI ring and its enforcers, the Indian Air Force (IAF) prepares its own counter measures.
A primary measure is to empower critical thinking to its mid-level (Wing Commander rank) officers through a programme called the Warfare and Aerospace Study Programme (WASP). WASP is imparted through, the Centre for Aerospace Power and Strategic Studies (CAPSS), along with the College of Air Warfare (CAW). A programme beyond the established Professional Military Education (PME) programmes of the nation.
Indian armed forces have one of the world’s best continued education programmes for the faujis. Staff Course at the junior levels, the Higher Command and equivalent courses at the mid-career level and the National Defence Course (NDC) for one-star (Brigadier) rank at the National Defence College.
WASP is presently conducting its fifth course. Further, WASP prides itself on selecting two small cohorts of about ten to twelve officers who each take a written test and face an interview panel before being selected
NDC is also attended by one-star officers of friendly nations. Having lectured at the NDC for a few years, I can vouch it as the most unique, professional and international programme at that level. The only programme, in my knowledge, where officers from USA, Russia, Iran and Ukraine among other nations, all sit in the same class and study together.
WASP is presently conducting its fifth course and I had the honour of being a guest faculty for it. WASP prides itself on selecting two small cohorts of about ten to twelve officers who each take a written test and face an interview panel before being selected.
In its present avatar, the programme is a 26-week programme spread over five modules. During the first module participants read a book per week. Subsequently, a book or about 200 to 250 pages are read per day and discussed under the able mentorship of a subject matter expert (SME), hand-picked for the same.
A large spread of topics are covered. They include subjects like Strategy, Military History, Civil-Military relations, Higher Defence Organisation, Aerospace Power, Information, Technology, Hybrid and Irregular Warfare.
The spread of topics with SME mentored discussions helps inculcate an ability to think independently, ponder across disciplines, and align military thinking with broader national goals. Thereby, shaping a new generation of leaders who can blend cross-domain knowledge to generate policy-driving ideas with a whole-of-nation approach
This spread of topics with SME mentored discussions helps inculcate an ability to think independently, ponder across disciplines, and align military thinking with broader national goals. Thereby, shaping a new generation of leaders who can blend cross-domain knowledge to generate policy-driving ideas with a whole-of-nation approach.
Initially, I was a bit sceptical of the programme. Is this kind of grand marathon reading even physically possible? I recalled that I had originally read the book allotted to me, over days with great interest. How would the faujis read it in a day?
But I was pleased to note that the initial books on the first module’s reading list were on speed reading, rapid absorption and rumination. Many might not know the difference between science and technology. When scientific knowledge is used to solve a real-world problem, it is called technology.
And to solve the real-world problem of reading a full book in a very short time span, mankind has developed specific techniques. Such technologies give humanity a chance against the agents of AI or agentic AI, as they say.
As we look at AI suspiciously, the holdouts of Iran and Ukraine in the recent past have also shown how savvy statecraft can outplay powerful adversaries.
Programmes like WASP are the need of the hour to develop the critically thinking scholar-warriors who can face a variety of avant-garde warfare styles, AI and other geopolitical challenges of the near future
WASP challenges its participants towards this statecraft, as well. WASP also invites participants from the other two services and civilian officers from the Ministry of Defence. The programme started in December last year and during the programme, every participant author three research papers.
The programme culminates in a capstone seminar to be held this year, on June 29, in Delhi. This year’s themes include – the role of air power in limited conflicts and the transformation of air power for future conflicts.
Programmes like WASP are the need of the hour to develop the critically thinking scholar-warriors who can face a variety of avant-garde warfare styles, AI and other geopolitical challenges of the near future. The public at large can also enhance its knowledge intake with microlearning apps like Deepstash, BeFreed, Blinkist, Headway, etc.
The writer has international experience in implementing entrepreneurial ecosystems in emerging technologies. He is also a former member of the National Security Advisory Board. The views expressed are of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views of Raksha Anirveda
