On July 28, Gen. Glen D. VanHerck, commander of U.S. Northern Command and NORAD, delivered a briefing to reporters in which he described something called “Global Information Dominance Experiments,” which his command has been running with all of the other 11 combatant commands. GIDE is claimed to be a wondrous new tool for preventing crises worldwide, but is better described as the final shutdown of cognitive capabilities in the U.S. military. The gobbledygook with which VanHerck described GIDE leads one to the conclusion that it’s the shutdown of cognition.
“The Global Information Dominance Experiment that we’re going to talk about, and more specifically, the recent Global Information Dominance Experiment 3, was a cross-command event seeking to leap forward our ability to maintain domain awareness, achieve information dominance and provide decision superiority in competition and crisis,” VanHerck said. This is all about “integrated deterrence” which “is about using the right mix of technology, operational concepts and capabilities, all woven together in a networked way that is credible, flexible and formidable that will give any adversary pause, especially to think about attacking our homeland. So I fundamentally believe that integrated deterrence, which you’re hearing the secretary talk a lot about today, allows for the increase of decision space, and that GIDE, the Global Information Dominance Experiments, embodies a fundamental change in how we use information and data to increase decision space for leaders from the tactical level to the strategic level — not only military leaders, but also gives opportunity for our civilian leaders.”
What this all adds up to, according to VanHerck, is the (supposed) ability to use artificial intelligence to predict the future days in advance and act preemptively to head off a crisis. “[W]e would take artificial intelligence and use machine learning to take a look and assess, for example, the average number of cars in a parking lot that may be there in a specific location to a competitor or a threat. And we monitor that over a period of time,” VanHerck said in response to a question. “The machine learning and the artificial intelligence can detect changes in that and we can set parameters where it will trip an alert to give you the awareness to go take another sensor such as GEOINT on-satellite capability to take a closer look at what might be ongoing in a specific location.”
