AI MOD-Learn

The war in Ukraine has shown that, to adapt the motto of the British SAS, ‘Who Innovates, Wins’.

In warfare, rapid innovation in tactics and equipment is vital to claim victory and avoid defeat.

This is especially true in a digital age and one of such high living standards that it is difficult to recruit enough soldiers to go into the hellfire of war.

Ukraine has shown how mobilising the whole of civil society and the private sector in support of the war effort is key to victory, just as the UK did in World War II.

You need a mass of people with skills, knowledge and creativity to develop new ways of thinking, new equipment and technology, and new strategies to defeat the enemy and win the war.

That requires a highly-knowledgeable populace and a well-informed, intelligent and open-minded public sector and Ministry of Defence to understand and make use of those ideas.

Given the MOD employs several hundred thousand civilian and uniformed personnel, there is sufficient core mass to justify the creation of a high-quality online learning platform.

The platform would create highly effective and engaging, AI-tutor supported lessons on a wide range of topics from digital skills and coding, through to engineering and ballistics, to rapidly upskill MOD personnel in these areas, making them conversant in the topic to be able to judge ideas brought to them by wider society and enhance internal innovation capability.

The MOD should not procure such a solution, as it would likely cost a fortune and face huge delays as most government IT projects do, but instead create a clear demand signal to business; they would offer £300 per person per year (over £60 million per year) to purchase a license to such a platform, and then allow units or individuals themselves to choose their preferred platform (subject to an assurance process to create a shortlist to maintain quality control and prevent snooping or sabotage by adversaries).

Such spend is little per person, but is likely to provide a great return on investment and create the financial incentive that could lead to wider digitisation of education, helping to increase access to high quality education for all of the British public and the world at large through such innovation.

Such a platform is not designed to replace conventional military training, but rather provide an uplift in the quantity and quality of education offered to create a military that is as capable as possible, and has the knowledge and skills to innovate across the Defence domain, from weapons and vehicles on the ground to satellites and sensors in space.

In a rapidly changing modern world, rapid, high quality education is key to ensuring our people keep pace with, adapt to, and succeed in that changing world to deliver the Defence the country needs to prosper.