Chris Kirchhoff: The "real question" is what autonomy does for deterrence
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Chris Kirchhoff, the head of applied AI strategy and global security at Scale AI, doesn't "worry about the killer robots quite yet, in the sense that architecting AI systems that work reliably is very difficult," he told Axios in a recent interview.
- "I think the real question is: When will autonomous systems provide a layer of deterrence that we don't have today?"
Why he matters: Kirchhoff worked for the Pentagon and the White House and helped establish the Defense Innovation Unit. He later wrote a book about that adventure, plus the evolving defense-tech landscape.
Q: When you hear "future of defense," what comes to mind?
A: I think the future of defense isn't about any one thing, but rather about a race to adopt commercial technology.
- Scale AI, for instance, has an incredible new program called Thunderforge. We're doing it with the Defense Innovation Unit.
- It's all about creating decisional advantage for Indo-Pacific and European commands by taking best in class commercial models, and engineering them into a very bespoke command-and-control and planning system.
Q: What's a national security trend we are not paying enough attention to?
A: How much of the Pentagon's budget goes to venture-backed defense-tech companies. The faster the Pentagon increases its spend, the quicker we get to a revolution in the technology that's deployed at scale.
Q: What's your secret to a successful overnight flight?
A: First, you reverse the aging process. Then you get a prescription for fourth-generation sleeping drugs that aren't invented yet.
- And, as long as you do those two things, you'll have a great flight.
Q: What time do you wake up? What does the morning routine look like?
A: 5am. Twice a week I go trail running in the Marin Headlands.
Q: What advice would you give your younger self?
A: There is no such thing as a planned career. Work hard, and watch for the door to open stage left.
