When a teammate is struggling with depression, mental health or other psychological issues, it can have a debilitating effect on the entire team. During a military operation, those issues, if left unaddressed, can lead to mission failure, injury and death.
To prevent mental health issues from becoming a problem on the battlefield, the Defense Innovation Unit—a team within the Defense Department that taps nontraditional contractors to bring the latest technologies to the military—wants to develop predictive artificial intelligence that can flag behavior changes in a service member.
In my entry on future war that didn't pass the Army's judging process in their contest, that was one of the jobs of HOOAH, the AI that I included in the essay:
HOOAH (Holistically Optimized Obedient Artificial-intelligence Hybrid), which controlled the MESLAS, confirmed in her confident cadence, “All systems good to go, Sergeant Washington. Your 4-mini-cell backpack is within function parameters, reading 91%; but I’ve tagged it for maintenance.”
“Thank you, Hooah. That’s a comfort.”
HOOAH noted Washington’s response, which correlated with positive morale in past actions. The judgment was supported by physical indicators of heart rate and oxygen consumption, among other vital signs monitored by the MESLAS Net-Medicine suite.
HOOAH was a thread that ran throughout the essay that centered on 3-7 Cavalry scout Sergeant Gary Washington in the battle at Karmėlava, Bluestonia.
