would

you [Music]

after good afternoon wait a minute I heard one

that’s all we got the energy it’s the first day of ITC come on good

afternoon a great so that we want a good start to this because we expect to have

some good Dynamic conversation today we are going to have a couple of slides and

and a little bit of presentations but really uh I’m going to surprise our panelists

with a set of questions um yes that’s right you heard surprise a little bit because I wanted their actual gut

reactions to um how you know the these this topic will play out in the future

or is it here right myth or reality we don’t know yet so uh and we’re going to

start out initially with couple of introductions a couple of slides go into questions and we want you folks ALS o

who are the experts too to provide questions and comments and conversation

with us right so we want this to be really Dynamic and to uh have great involvement and interaction okay so this

topic is the dawn of the super soldier now as much as I would love to take credit for this I cannot I have to thank

Mariam chandre for leading the efforts with a a group to come up with this topic in organizing this wonderful panel

that we have today again of experts to throughout out training physiological U

biological types of processes uh various uh equipment so exoskeletons think those

kinds of things as well as selection okay so we have a range of panelists here to cover the kind of breath that

might involve a super soldier now when we hear super soldier what do we usually think think Marvel right Captain

America um you know a variety of things Iron Man okay so it could be any of

these types of sci-fi ideas but are they sci-fi maybe or are we there how close

are we there right or are they completely autonomous are they drones it

could be independent right so we have a variety of topics we are going to go

ahead and delve right into our uh introductions here and actually we’re

going to do this a little differently again we’re forward leaning with this topic so rather than than me just read

off their bios and I do know each of these individuals too um I think it’s more fun for them to introduce

themselves so they are coming I am Lauren reinerman Jones and I am actually

have an appointment ship with the da special appointment professorship with da as well as I’m an analyst for

Southwest Research Institute and I have a breath of a background 25 years plus

of DOD work across the services so that’s me and a nutshell and I’ll go on to Dr Andy McKinley hi uh

Andy McKinley I’m a biomedical engineer by training I manage the Air Force’s Neuroscience portfolio so a lot of the

work that I manage is focused on uh interfacing with the brain how do we

extract more information from the brain and how do we augment brain activity in a way that uh improves performance uh

also can we um inject inject information into the brain can we write to the brain

you know think back to the Matrix for those of you that are old enough to to remember that but uh those types of

Technologies are actually starting to become real and uh I actually have a

little bit of data over here just to show real quick just to kind of kick off the

discussion but um yeah so uh brain machine interfaces

um enhancing sustaining enabling and restoring performance is what we focus on these so these are all healthy normal

people application so much in line with the super soldier idea um we work a lot

with DARPA um but one of the projects that we have been engaged with for the

past uh almost six years now has been looking at uh stimulating cranial nerves

to change brain activity and ways that improve performance and so the original DARPA program was called targeted

neuroplasticity for training and the whole idea there was to see if you can stimulate a cranial nerve that

Downstream affects uh key pieces of brain like Locus cilus that uh

enhances memory uh acquisition and retention and uh lo and behold it does

so we this is some of the data from the lab where we were doing a simulated ISR

intelligence surve and reconnaissance task where people were learning to identify uh targets and uh people were

able to learn uh about 20% faster um they were able to retain the information

better so about 90 days after we completed the training the effect size

actually got bigger so now the difference is 35% between the groups because uh the the group that didn’t get

stimulation or the the group that got the Sham stimulation actually uh forgot

more information more quickly so their memory Decay rate was faster and um

so what does the technology look like well it’s it’s this essentially looks like a a a razor right an electric razor

you’d hold it up to your neck for two minutes and then you have uh hours of of

after effect in fact uh we did a study for NASA which is down there in the bottom corner uh we showed we could

sustain performance for about uh 12 to 14 hours and that has been replicated uh

these learning results have been rep replicated outside our lab within um

other labs uh and in the field so uh we actually got some money from ousd uh

from a program called boost and we uh uh the whole purpose of boost is to take

biotechnologies and get them the last little bit over the Finish Line uh to a

product that uh is transition able and so um what we developed is basically in

this picture here it’s uh it’s actually now a commercial product called tax stem they also have a uh commercial product

for uh everybody else called uh the true Vaga um it’s a company called electric

core but uh we did do validation out in the field so uh we’ve done this is one

of the examples this was uh with the the Defense Language Institute so we took

real linguist trainees uh and we gave them a vocabulary learning task every

day over the course of a week and we found that uh again about a 20% uh acceleration in terms of their

their learning uh one of the other really cool things was with their um with their mood so um this device uh at

least the medical form of the device has actually been cleared as a um a

treatment for uh PTSD because of this robust mood effect right so people feel more

energetic less anxious um less nervous uh they feel happier uh they feel more

confident in their ability to do the task um and one of the things that we found in this study was that uh you know

more PE people that were doing the training um the the folks getting the

Sham stimulation they obviously got more tired after they finished the the training um um the folks that got

stimulation though actually felt more energetic so I don’t know if you’ve ever sat down and decided I’m going to learn

a really hard foreign language like Arabic I’m going to sit here and do this for an hour and at the end of that hour

you’re like now I’m more I’m more energetic I’m ready to go uh uh about

the rest of my day but these people felt that way and that’s just insane to me so uh really robust effects on mood uh and

then we also are looking at new ways new sensors uh to extract information from

the brain so there’s this program called individualized neural Learning System that just wrapped up but we have a

follow on going now uh but looking at some novel sensors so a wearable

magnetoencephalography system was one of the things that uh was under development here and uh it’s very very very close so

um at any rate this uh new technology will allow us to extract more

information information easier and have uh 3D localization capabilities as well

so we know where the signal is coming from in the brain uh with higher resolution uh and then we’ve also been

working with DARPA on this next Generation non-surgical neurotechnologies program so this is um

we we’ve actually been working with a company called tadine to uh look at technologies that are able to write to

the brain at very high resolution and so um that this is is very early uh so

there’s still a lot of development to do but this is something that that will be coming in the future uh to be able to

wear a device that non-invasively can write information directly to your brain um

without any surgery without any uh actually not even any uh Sensations on

your skin so this is um this is really exciting technology to us as well so

that is uh that’s basically all I had so thank you so

much all right well welcome everyone uh and we’re excited to be here not all of us put together slides so I I just want

to say those were incredible and exciting to to see in the angle that that I take um so my background is uh I

am the learning engineering lead for saic uh previous to this uh I was the

director of innovation for the advanced distributed learning initiative under the office of Secretary of Defense and so in in that regard what we’re looking

at across all of these uh learning engineering spaces is really how do we prepare for the ability to ingest all of

what he just described right what Andy’s talking about is these elements that we can either uh mix with the brain uh or

we’re certainly going to be hearing about as well how we do that physically uh and and how those Tech techologies

are all going to connect from a data perspective um from a learning perspective and then how we harness that

to be able to uh be able to move people into those operational spaces faster and more efficiently and so the focus um of

the work that I’ve done although I I don’t have studies to bring today um so I’m going to talk a little bit more

generally about what it is that’s changing across this spectrum uh is is really looking at how do we from a

policy perspective how do we from a strategy perspective and how do we at the Tactical level look at how we set up

our syllabi how do we think about joint operations training how do we make sure that we are connecting all of the dots

so that that information about the human can be taken in ethically it can be

combined in order to make recommendations going forward and then how is it that we ingest all of the

learning science information that we know in other words when do we help someone out when do we push them forward when do we hold them back right a start

point is how do we get them energized I love that right but on the other hand then what do we do with that energy how

long can we we push that and and where can we put that energy and how can we use it most effectively so all of those

questions start to get answered as we think from a learning engineering space I’ll pass that

wonderful thank you JJ hey everybody I’m George Muk from the

Army devcom soldier center in Massachusetts um my on sensitive

that’s all right uh so I lead the uh Mastery S&T program it’s a 5-year S&T

effort um to measure predict and enhance individual and small unit performance tactical performance so it’s very task F

focused task oriented um I actually do have a couple slides but I don’t know if I have to get up to move them do I have

to get up to move them no oh maybe my slides are gone all right so I’ll just

talk they’re at the end all right well we will hold your slid for

how about one moment no problem and go back up to oh you want to talk finish I

think said hold the slides until later well see I can just talk it’s fine okay go

for it I know in the Army we can’t talk without slides usually but that’s okay um so you know there’s a couple

different ways to think about super soldiers well there’s more than a couple a couple that I put on a slide at some point um one of them is very equipment

focused you know it’s like all the stuff we give them to make them more capable um but really what we’ve been focusing

on in Mastery uh in particular is all of the the human X factors those attributes

those traits those States what are those are those things about soldiers that make them more capable outside of just

their equipment make them more resilient make them more lethal make them better decision makers um physically capable

all of that stuff um and what you know I hadn’t thought about until we were sitting here I don’t know that we’re ever going to get to that super soldier

threshold because the the the Gul posts are always moving right if you go ask someone from the re Revolutionary War

you know what’s super soier to you and they’d describe something and we’d be like we’d be there now right you can put

you know tens of rounds On Target really fast you can carry all this weight because we’re just bigger than they used to be you know you can you can call

fires in from the sky over a thing that doesn’t it’s not like a runner like that’s pretty that’s pretty super right

so I think what we’ve envisioned now as a super soldier for 2040 or 2050 you know is probably something that’s

attainable but we’ll never quite get there because we’ll always keep reimagining what that looks like great

great point and I love that starts a discussion here in just a moment so thank you hey good afternoon

everyone I am Irwin Hudson and I was a late edition so I didn’t get slides either however um just to give you a

little background about myself um I come at come I come at this topic you know from a a lot of different perspectives

you know starting out uh as a programmer with seic a long time ago in 91 I became

a Ceda contractor so I’ve been a I was seedar contract for about 10 years with the government and then after that I

finally became a government government engineer civilian in 2004 and since then I came in an

acquisition with Po and after two years of understanding I didn’t like acquisition I joined S&T and that’s

where I’ve been ever since um with um started out with rdom we switched to um

ARL Army research laboratory and then now I’m home with devcom soldier center

and enjoying every every minute of it um my research deals you know mainly with um decision making you know I was

looking at trying to create an effective assessment tool that you know enhance

talent management and one of the main things is Personnel selection and the second one was training so I come at it

from that perspective and looking at the super soldier though I am more going to probably play Devil’s Advocate you know

because in even in dealing with autonomous weapons and autonomous systems over the years I’ve always not

been that much of a fan because of the ethics coming from a coaching background also I consider as cheating although we

do know that all is fair and Love and War but you know I still want to somehow

play fair and that’s what I look at and this and becoming you know creating a super soldier is is creating advantages

which at the end of the day I know we’re still looking out for our warfighters so that’s perspective how we coming from

thank you fantastic thank you all so much for in introducing yourselves and giving us an initial startup perspective

again we wanted to spend a lot of time because oftentimes with these panels right it it’s very interactive very

Dynamic and then it’s over right and so we wanted to spend a lot of time for

that interaction and discussion and conversation but being the moderator I get the first set of questions so um

I’ve kind of put together again a set of questions that will span again this whole group’s backgrounds and expertise

and hopefully cover and I don’t mean to ignore all of you folks over there too so you can just yell at me okay if you

have a question but to make sure we cover also the range of interdisciplinary and multi-disciplinary

backgrounds that are in this room right and that come from all over the world right that’s one of the great pieces

that we have here at IC in this community and so I think our panel really highlights the range of that um

so my first question is very generic

what makes a super soldier so is it a person is it a robot what is it that

makes a super soldier and I’ll open that up for the panel to take

does uh okay I guess I’m in the middle so I

um I look at it very outcome based um you know I we just had General Rainey uh

the Army Futures command Commander up to visit us uh very recently and you know his his perspective is at least for the

foreseeable future it’s never going to be a fully autonomous Army there will always be alwayss being in quotes I

guess but there’ll always be a soldier involved one way shape or form is going to be a soldier involved and that’ll be more you know of a teaming exercise than

an individual exercise so I I try to look at it um more outcome based what are the effects we want to have on the

battlefield what are the effects we want to have on the enemy and then you kind of can decompose that into the different

abilities a person needs you know to be able to sustain themselves physically and mentally and and socially in a very

violent environment coupled with all the other things that we need you know from networks to weapons to food and water

and everything else so I I bring it to the outcomes typically I I guess I look at it more um

like from a cyborg kind of perspective you know uh a person that’s augmented by

technology you know their biology is augmented their physiology is augmented in a way that allows them to perform uh

or be more effective than somebody that without those uh te technological AIDS

and um yeah I mean I guess that’s fairly broad but I’m thinking you know things

that interact more directly with the physiology and and

biology same here um coming from a little more seasons pers perspective you

know back when the $6 million man some of you guys might remember or Steve Austin The Bionic Man and someone being

able to do more than any other human could do run fat I think it was better faster or and stronger so now like I

said that start moving more toward toward the cyborg type being able to be more

resilient U more effective and more lethal so that’s what I see so I’ll add

on to that I a I’ll concur on all these points I think it’s it’s really being able to expand the capability of the

human um at least today right like we will get into a point where we have autonomous space um elements I’m just

going to use the word element because I think it covers a lot of different possibilities but I think there’s additional piece to it which is going to

be that that super Fleet concept so it’s not just how do I enhance uh everyone in

other words making each brain work faster better cheaper um or or to be

able to put the exoskeleton in order to to add these wearable devices but additionally to look at how each

individual human innate uh traits may actually interact

with that and escalate that further so in other words looking across people versus simply looking at each individual

and I think as we look at that super Fleet uh and Joint operation spaces we

may be able to also extend uh based on what each individual is also which um

Branch we’re talking about and be able to go even further one of the questions that I got recently uh at the

was so so JJ why do I want to have uh anybody be specialized why can’t I just

have everybody be uh the same because then I can move them in and out as I need to and my response was that you are

pitting your versatility against their expertise and what we need to be able to

do is have expertise and capability to the furthest extent for each individual

but then also be able to look at that across all of um our entities as well and I think that’s when we start

maximizing in and optimizing the system versus just the individual so I did you

get a hold of my questions beforehand because you just read right into this PJ so my my second question actually has to

do with this idea of individuality uh versus you know everyone right having these capabilities

when we think Super Soldier we’re typically thinking of a select few right or um advancing those however if we are

talking about you know not the entire force and Fleet and everything else

every every war fighter having the superpowers uh who do we select and how

are they selected what are the characteristics uh for selection right

uh do we want to amplify characteristics that are already existent in those

individuals or are we trying to supplement and add and comp or compliment right so I open that

floor so my experience um you know in the 20 some years I’ve been doing this

is that it’s far easier to uh improve a

function that is um not already at a high level right so taking uh somebody

who’s already basically really close to that ceiling and trying to get them all the way to the ceiling is way harder

than getting somebody that’s way down here and bringing them up right so um I think at least the

the types of technologies that that I work with on the Neuroscience side it’s um you get far more bang for your buck

with folks or with bringing up uh uh delinquent functions that are not uh

where they should be all right I don’t want to be Devil’s

Advocate this early but um I guess coming from the sports perspective because I mean I’ve I’ve been coaching

and training for 30 years and I honestly have seen it you know it’s so much much easier to take someone that’s here even

higher than from low to up I mean when you don’t have the skills to start from

the basics it’s a lot tougher and so it might be a little bit different with the Neuroscience part and but even learning

it’s just a lot harder from the you know taking it from the sports perspective in that world that’s and that’s where I

come from with it I mean I I think I’ve seen a little bit more Andy what you were talking

about um because we work with both special operators and general purpose forces and to get that last extra

percent you know the Special Operations guys are willing to spend that time and effort and money to get after it but

it’s really hard to close that Gap sometimes because they’re already experts um you know we we we we always

talk about you know as we move forward training will’ll be more individualized attention will be more individualized models performance models will be more

individualized um so I think I think that’s probably where the focus is naturally going to be for the next you

know 10 15 years or so but um what JJ was talking about you know working as a system you know the old the the old logo

or the the slogan when I was a kid was an army of one and like that’s that’s never been the case right you’re never

if you’re fighting as one there’s something very very wrong um so it’s really you know how do you how do we

optimize you to then optimize the unit I think is where we’re going to go I in

theory that’s a good way to look at it I mean Army of one because you supposed to be fighting in unison however like go

back to the sports analy I mean you have to be specific in your positions you have to have different types of positions different levels and a little

bit back on um his qu his answer yeah you’re right you I mean it’s easier to

take this lower level up a little bit because there’s so much room to grow getting to that next one is a little bit

Yeah I think that’s where you’re Gooding at is that it’s harder to get it to the next level because they’re already up there so far yeah so I understand

that I think it’s G to be I I think it’s going to be both um but I think this is also an empirical question right I mean

there is going to be how do you get All Ships to rise of course um and so I I think to your point yes that’s where

we’re going to put first procurement dollars is how do we get everybody to operate at a level higher than they are currently and I think that makes a lot

of sense I think also as we’re going to really enter a peer fight it is not

going to be about just having generalists it’s also going to be about having those that can Elevate past that

and I think maybe that’s where the question comes in how does that selection occur maybe the this is where we start using better data analytics

maybe this is where we start using more of that AI to help us identify who has the propensity to go further than what

we would expect and or how do we get that technology to expand and double um

or multiply is probably a better word multiply what is capable so in other words our definition of expert today may

be here how do we get our our definition to be up here and when do we need to have those and how many of those that I

think is going to be much more of an empirical question and it’s going to depend on and the operational environment that we face which we may

not even be able to predict as well as we did in the past which is also going to come into play so I think this is

going to be much more complex than you know here’s the one thing we’re going to be able to do and this is how we’re

going to do it I think um you know just speaking from a a training perspective what I keep thinking about is how do we

get in a place where we have those options to exercise and of course one of them is we have got to start collecting

dat and we’ve got to be able to understand what data we’re collecting and what we can do with it and so it’s super

encouraging to hear the research that’s happening what I hope to see is that we start getting into policy the approvals

to be able to collect that data so that we are able to start making these decisions informed versus necessarily uh

our best guess can I tag on to that sure okay so I love I love everything you just said what I want to see that we get

to is more targeted training yeah right because we we train everything right we have all the this mandatory training we have all these things we there’s this

long list of things we need to do and so we peanut butter everything right instead of being able to measure the one

those key things that matter for the job that you have to do and then spending more time on those instead of doing a

little bit of time on everything that’s where I want to see us get and just that and itself will help our soldiers be

more capable yeah definitely so you know the question really comes from also um

Raja peris serman right so founder of neuroergonomics and uh you know him he

and his students uh completed work um on doing Snips of DNA right and they found

a couple of super performers right so if you have these super performers and this was specific to vigilance or sustained

attention at the time right then um that are

predisposed that have this somehow genetic capability even though they weren’t necessarily academically

exceptional or anything else are those the people that we want to Target

um you know that already have this innate skill set right that come to the

table with something uh versus being way down here to optimize and get bring them

further uh not everybody becomes a Navy SEAL right not everybody everybody goes to uh to become Special

Forces uh so the same way that there’s some selection process there how would we select for a super

soldier yeah I think uh um with new uh

analyses the Advent of of AI as well there’s a lot more opportunities to

match people with their uh optimal job that they would be good at right so um

for example on the attention thing right uh Marvin Chun uh has done a lot of work

on uh functional connectivity analysis with MRI data right so he’s been able to

show that um you know you can image somebody’s brain with MRI and based on

the functional connectivity and the frontal cortex You can predict their attentional capabilities all the way

from people that have uh add all the way up to these super performers that uh can

maintain their attention for ungodly amounts of time and um you know there’s

you can also start to to look at things like uh resting state EEG so there’s been some some work um over the past

couple years uh you know showing uh some really interesting uh results in terms

of being able to predict how well somebody’s going to do at a a particular job just based on this five minute

resting state EEG so you know are there these simple lowcost uh low time

investment kinds of data collections that you could do up front to help guide

uh the you know what training somebody should be focusing on um and then you

know when they get into the training uh can you use that information as feedback right so can you do real-time monitoring

to Pro to U provide uh the the training material

with the information on on what the person’s brain is doing right so based on on my brain maybe it says right you

need a uh less difficult uh training for for your next

uh uh session uh and you know somebody else maybe George has you know hey you

know looks like you’ve got this mastered so need to go to the next level here um you know because our performance may be

the same but you know maybe my brain’s working way harder to get to that performance than

torches so this will be an interesting question I think um depending depending

on where it goes so you know we do we do some we do this crudely already like when people assess right they get kind

of a we test them a little bit and they get a range of things that are available to them and it’s not necessarily you’re

steering them because of their abilities but just some degree you are coarsely um

but imagine imagine a future where we’re able to do that and be like listen you’re going to be an aviator and it’s

like well I don’t want to be an AV I want to be an infantry man like no no no you’re gonna be an aviator like that could cause some issues but what really

what really is going to be kind of where the rubber needs to roote in my opinion is when you say there are 50 slots and

these are the 50 because of their natural innate abilities not because necessarily of how well you have been

doing because you know it’s like the American experience we all think we can be our best and we can work hard harder than everybody else and get to where we

want to go because this is the American way we’re going to work hard and get there and if somebody says no no no your

brain patterns say you’re not going to be a good avor or you’re not going to be as good as these guys even though they’ve never flown a day in their lives

that’s going to be it’s a very different way of doing business it’s a very different way of thinking would it probably make better soldiers maybe but

you know you look into morale and maybe legality even fairness there’s a lot of questions there yeah okay I’m thinking

more back to what exactly are we having the super soldier do I mean are we looking at speed we looking at decision

making are we looking at you know power lethality it just I guess it depends on

all that because you know I go back to the the movies I’m a movie buff um the C

Marvel movies and um Captain America wasn’t a you know he wasn’t a big guy he wasn’t a big strong he wasn’t like

Arnold Schwarzenegger and Terminator he was a little scrawny guy and all of a sudden the super serum or whatever

turned him into this Warrior so I guess when we go to it it depends on what we’re having these super soldiers

actually do that’s what I’m thinking about yeah on my on my imaginary slides that don’t exist my my second my first

slide was like the traditional super soldier they’re going to be amazingly physically capable they’re going to have wonderful decision- making and be fast

and resilient and whatever whatever whatever but the second slide was like okay what if the super soldier of 2050

is sitting at a keyboard right they could be the most lethal soldier in history if they have access to the effects of theork Nets to run them and

they never have to do more than this like that’s that could be the Super Soldier of the future so it gets absolutely back to what are the tasks

they need to perform for to be successful and then and then what do they need to be able to do well so JJ

would you like to add anything before I go to the next question so that actually feeds right into one of my other questions right which is uh you know

like if it’s is it an implanted chip is it external Technologies you know let’s

dig a Little Deeper what are the technologies that are going to be required here right um is it you know

we’re we’re all in the era now of uh of AI right but AI is so generic of a term

right I mean where there’s first generation second generation AI a lot of it’s just a pattern recognition we’re probably all using chat GPT by now I

would hope um but there’s also the third generation like neur neuromorphics right

uh which gets down to the combination of this software and Hardware into a tiny little chip that can be implanted right

um so will it actually just be the external technology like they’re sitting down and they have better Hardware

available to them or is it a combination well there’s others right there’s some uh actually in some of the

joint slides on here I don’t know if you want to share some of those but they talk about things like um you know synthetic blood allowing you to be

underwater for much longer uh than than currently able and of course being able to have uh drops in the eyes to create

night vision uh the ability to uh you know from I again I fall back to

training because that’s that’s my area but so I’ll say the ability to learn something much faster one of the things

in the Air Force we talk about is uh as we add airframes and and as we get into

Sixth Gen where we’re dealing with semi-autonomous vehicles the amount of data an individual is going to have to take in and the speed at which they’re

going to have to uh take up the ability to to utilize a new airframe may be very very fast how do we uh get that

information into the individual quickly uh and also recognize what they have to unar learn and relearn how do we do all

of those assessments so some of it is really cool stuff right like just the idea of synthetic blood in and of itself

is just is mindboggling and what that might allow you to do and some of it is just really tangible things okay great

we have these capabilities when and how do we use them and for whom do we use

them to make most sense so I think when we start talking about what does it look like it’s going to look like all of these things you are going to have

operators who are drone operators that are sitting at a a keyboard you are going to have folks that are maybe see that are going to use the capabilities

uh in night vision and blood to be able to do things you are going to have individuals who who have to be the more

cognitive weapon systems as I like to call them who are going to need that neuro boost and expansion um that Andy’s

talking about and and so we’re going to need all of these pieces I think part of

the question is it’s this is largely available in pieces parts and one of our

Hallmark challenges in DOD is bringing it all together uh so I think I think there’s some pragmatic challenges beyond

the UA awesomeness right um one of the things we talk about at IC commonly is

that modeling and simulation has so many bells and whistles but do we use those B bells and whistles to actually improve

training not always um and so to me this is this is an extension of that same concept this is a lot of bells and

whistles of exciting possibilities what’s the combination that makes most sense and when

absolutely I think that gets us also to what are we what risks are willing to take yeah great right there’s I mean

that when we we had our first like you know panel meeting uh a few weeks ago that was my that was my Debbie Downer

kind of thing is like it’s like okay you know there are all these wonderful things we can do you know scientifically

proven in the midst of being proven definitely Concepts and then there’s like well we’re trying to do simple

stuff like put a put a watch on a soldier and it’s like whoa whoa have you thought about this whole Litany of

policies it’s like oh my God where how are we going to get from like this to

implanted you know chips to do X Y and Z you know you know um I’ll I’ll differ with you for just just a moment you know

we don’t want a fair fight we really don’t this is not an honorable thing we want our guys to be overmatching any

possible enemy right so why aren’t we giving them pharmaceutical enhancements why are we making them run you know all

week when we could just be you know giving them steroids and send them to the gym or something like there are all these other things you could do if you

change societal norms and ethics right and laws in some cases because other countries don’t have those same

boundaries right so what What will What could end up happening in my opinion is we find oursel in a situation where our

soldiers as talented and and trained and ready as they are are now facing an

unfair fight because another country is willing to say hey guess what you male

are a good Aviator you m female are a good Aviator you’re going to make the best Aviator babies we’ve ever seen and

I don’t care that you’re not married you’re going to make babies and we’re going to get really great aviators look they’re going to breed people right

that’s a thing um you know are they willing to go that extra step that we are not and until there’s a real forcing

function for us where we are losing or we are falling so far behind the technological curve I don’t see us

taking huge leaps and you know what you read my my questions too right what’s the what are

the the things that are standing in the way of a super soldier happening yeah okay let me go back a little bit to hit

his Point again yeah because I I thought I was the only Debbie Downer but um all right um what I look at though is you’re

right it’s you know they do have to you know we do have to look at those things because I first thing I thought about

was research how is that going to get by an RB there’s no way that’s gonna get by sock um but from the human standpoint

from when you come to sports like steroids and things like that there side effects there’s always going to be something to deal with far as the

breeding aviators I understand that because that’s you know natural but when you start adding things to humans the

ethical part of it is what’s going to happen to that human afterwards plus if that human turns on you and just like we

consider robots the autonomous robots we’re we’re afraid of those so that’s where I go I mean I’m I’m a little

concerned with that when we think that we can just start you know competing with these other ones why not make more

lethal weapon systems that’s going to stop the adversary the the you know the ones over in the foreign countries that

are coming trying to get us that are creating super soldiers so that’s what I think yeah I think um you know as you

mentioned risk right I mean the the risk to benefit ratio is really important when you start looking at technologies

that are going to make super soldiers you know doing a surgical implant for

somebody that is uh debilitated because of an injury or or disease um that’s a

different risk benefit ratio than somebody that is healthy normal and happy otherwise and you know you’re

trying to you know give them a an advantage over an adversary um so in my

opinion if you’re going to go into um you know very invasive kinds of

Technologies like implanted chips the benefit will have to be tremendous in

order for people to uh want to have that done to them um and you know I think in

the near term uh non-invasive are much more appealing because it’s you know

safe reliable reversible right um and I think the reversible piece is the big thing right I mean people don’t want

permanent changes done to their body with technologies that you know are

relatively new so that’s actually uh a great lead into one of the questions I had and one

of the questions that we’ve received from the audience so if you do these kinds of things to you know to an

individual um what do you do when their services up what happens uh or are they

just literally then owned by the government for Life termination how does

that work terminate I mean and how do you manage

that how do you manage when they get back into the real world I mean one of the the greatest you know problems that

we’ve faced more recently for our war Fighters is PTSD right so what do you what happens

you know psychologically in mentally and yet arguably perhaps by having these

interventions we would see fewer outcomes like that I mean these are some of the

questions that you have to ask right we can’t make the assumption that by enhancing the capability of the brain that the D that there’s going to be

damage afterwards perhaps we’re going to have higher energy after learning right perhaps we’re going to be able to

insulate the natural brain in ways we haven’t been able to Pro before perhaps

we’re going to be able to help regulate one of the things that um I talk about a lot is uh that someday we will probably

all have something similar to um when when people have an insulin pump right to to

regulate their insulin we may have one for dopamine right where where our dopamine and serotonin is all just

constantly regulating we all just we’re good we’re good all the time you know um

so I I make it a little bit of a joke but but you know we we can read it Brave New World and many other dystopias and

and consider these these Concepts but I I think we have to be careful assuming that negative is going to be the result

perhaps this will actually enhance and I also think we have to be careful assuming people wouldn’t want to try it

I think there are many people that would be interested in um body enhancements

one of the things that is interesting that is happening in our cult culture right now and probably almost everyone

in this room is is in the generation uh a ways up from it but the Next

Generation below us is questioning everything about themselves about Society about relationships about um the

way we’re talking a lot about it in Recruitment and Retention of military because the straight narrow clear

requirements that we’ve always had now don’t entirely match what we need and also don’t match what the next

generation is bringing to the table and some of the questions that they’re having we’re seeing you know it used to be that having a tattoo was kind of a

shocking thing now it’s I mean I never saw a mom when I was young that had a

tattoo now it’s so commonplace I don’t even think anything of it and you may not think that’s a big shift but that is

a big shift in the way we change our bodies the way we enhance our bodies the way we have plastic surgeries the way

that we um are doing lifelong learning we wouldn’t even think of that right now we’re talking about professional

certificates and whatnot the point is change is becoming normal where it used

to be you finished high school or you finished college or you finished military and you had a a homeostasis

that you hit and then you developed a across that time but more statically now

constant change is happening which means that culturally we are changing to an environment where people are going to be

more open to changing their bodies changing their minds enhancing things willing to try things that maybe in our

generation and the generation above us would not have been something that we would have entertained so I I wonder how

that’s going to play into it and I don’t think we could ignore it I do think that the developmental trajectory of young

people in our world in our country is changing so toward that end we have two questions from the audience also um one

is from uh stepen Lake usak and the other is an anonymous but they are related to this very topic of

recruitment um you know so how would you project to recruit the super soldier in

the near future and the other one like I said that is related is uh you know what’s the path to becoming that super

soldier is it citizen to Super Soldier or are you already enlisted or or active

duty the diu answer is it depends right um yeah that’s

a repeat what was the first part of the question that’s what I want to get to so how would you project to recruit the

super soldier yeah I mean it’s be all you can be right because what you’re really talking about is right you’re ra

you’re raising the top limit of what you’re capable of that’s how I right just you be all you can be um but that’s

really what it is right you’re you’re changing the perception of you know this is how far you can get in life you will

be this capable you will be able to LIF this much weight you can score this well on your you know standardized test what you’re saying is no no no we can

actually unlock 25% more potential in you I think that gets really interesting for people well I think the other thing

is is that gets away from the um you know fight as one idea too to the the

next generation of individuality um and for wanting to kind of be that best self right so uh that’s

kind of an interesting thought and I think people want to be around others who are also their best right I mean you know it’s not gospel

right go look at the Band of Brothers movie right they they talked about it wasn’t just some person to their left or

their right was another paratrooper someone that volunteered that they were going to be better than every other Soldier because they were going to jump

out of that plane and train really hard to do so so if you are now surrounded by people who are the best they can

possibly be that gets I think that’s really interesting for that high performing team thing but also trusting

that your comrades around you are going to be capable and have your back and all that goodness yeah I mean like the say

says you know birds of a feather flock together you know so you want to kind of rise with the group

yeah when I think there’s also that uh re you have to have the recognition when

there’s somebody that you’re you’re you know you they never going to be topnotch at a a given profession for example you

know I I won’t never be an Olympic runner ever I can train shave the beard you’ll

be yeah I I I could train every day for uh you know since the day I was born and I

would never be an Olympic runner but you know so that I think uh when you start looking even at some of the cognitive

things I mean there’s some people that are just built in a way or their brain is structured in a way that maybe

they’re not going to ever be you know a top-notch Intel officer or whatever it

is you know um and so I I think if we can get in get some windows into uh

those kinds of capabilities uh you can help guide them along their path to say

like you’re you’re not going to be really good at this but these other things over here you know at least the data showing you’re you’ve got a really

good chance at being you know top of your class or whatever yeah so I think uh this kind of

leads in a little bit to one of the other questions that we have here so based on uh all of these topics do we

still need uh diversity or neurodiversity in a team for best results or again are we looking towards

this individuality I think generally speaking

having multiple perspectives is always beneficial because otherwise group think

is is large only by chance going to be the best option right you you always want to

have the a diverse set of options to choose from and then use those

perspectives to elevate the Gestalt of that decision so that you have the best outcome so I don’t know that I I think I

think you’re always looking for diversity I think um the question more is how will we be enhancing these teams

and you know are we enhancing them to all be versatile or are we enhancing them to be Splinter um Talent um and I

don’t know I mean maybe we are making you into an Olympic runner I mean I I I think it’s an well I mean and and and I

joke but so so I have a son that was born with no Chambers or valves in his heart was essentially a balloon um he

has a prosthetic interior heart and I was told that he would never be able to do Sports he is now a Ultram marathoner

he runs a sub three-hour marathon and holds the fastest D time for the um Manhattan Loop W he is an enhanced human

in some way right and we joke about the fact that now to your point he had an issue so nobody minded doing surgery but

if we push the envelope and ask that ethical question hey can I take somebody and make them have an endurance heart

would you take it of course maybe um and so I think those are some

of the questions that come up I mean his heart is functioning better than what it would have on its own which no one

predicted so it’s interesting that we we have these challenges um I I think we’re always going to be looking for diverse

talent I I think that’s yeah happy to be disagreed with but I I don’t I don’t see why that would

go away I think it’s just a matter of how you put the puzzle pieces together yeah now speaking for the diverse person up here on the on the panel yes the

answer is yes definitely diversity is always key I think so I mean if we’re not if we’re not thinking differently in

our teams even as high performing as those teams on be we become predictable and if we’re predictable the enem is going to figure out what we’re going to

do and we’ll be dead so let’s doity and diversity is the number one benefit of our nation and that is what allows us to

look at a more group thinker single Le nation and and say we can win yeah as

long as we’re work together yeah exactly so I love it so you know a lot of we

have two questions that you know a lot of what we’ve been talking about and a lot of what we’ve shown on the screen also there a lot of is physical

enhancements and alterations making us super soldiers uh what do we think about

you know what mental items we touched on this a little bit obviously with the PTSD question uh but what about you know

for training metacognitive skills uh those types of things so my training

everybody looks at Andy um I mean I I think there are uh

there are ways to there’s lots of ways to influence brain activity uh it doesn’t have to require directed energy

or some external uh physical device um you know

I I think there’s lots of other Alternatives that people have been looking at you

know everything from like acupressure to meditation to uh cognitive training um

you know lots of different ways to uh well and even uh using your your own

physiological feedback you know this biof feedback to help you uh cont you

know control pieces of brain that you wouldn’t normally uh control with

conscious thought um so yeah I mean I I I think there’s lots

of opportunities there as well um I I think uh typically those kinds of things

uh don’t have large of an effect size as some of the other things that we’ve been seeing but certainly there’s there’s

options there well in back in the Sports World and um also in training world we

we we talk about something called muscle memory and creating muscle memory which we kind of found that you really don’t

create muscle memory it’s more brain that’s still stimulated to do it and I

do that through repetition I think repetition is the key to do a lot of that creating that

memory Sor so we have so many great questions coming in here okay before I

want to hit this though I think I think there’s something to be said here which is as as rightly has been pointed out

there’s there’s this ultimate goal of like being able to enhance the human at these what we consider today to be fair

Extreme Measures right implants and whatnot in the current state though we

have so much data and opportunity for things that we could optimize what we have available to us and it is because

of the way that we have been doing training across the services very Mission based very um linear very much

hasn’t changed a lot since the at least 90s if not 70s in some cases um and we

are not ready to even ingest these kinds of protocols that do help with metacognition or the ability to think

about what you’re what you’re looking for and what you’re thinking for and how to make those decisions or or how to enhance decision making Beyond single

Mission examples um and so as we think about perhaps two tiers of intervention

there’s what’s ultimate that we need to be ready for but also what can we do today um and I think that really has to

be hammered home because a lot of that can be done without pushing the ethical button too far without requiring massive

change in policy but also uh is increasing substantially the impact that we have uh and recognizing where the

other nations are running ahead uh we did a study um just a review of the research in uh looking at e real-time

EEG assessment and uh intervention during training live and 90% of the

studies were coming out of the Asian countries mostly China we are not doing as much of that research as they are and

they we are not employing it as much as they are and they’re showing improvements that they’re publishing of at least 30% Improvement those are the

kinds of things that we need to be putting into our service level practices

um because we already know them but more importantly we know that our adversaries are using and so for us to IGN those which are not

pushing those buttons I think is an ethical problem on the other side which is why are we not helping all of our

Personnel to be maximally prepared for something that we know that others are are using to Advantage sorry I just want

make sure no that’s perfect anything else yeah I just want to add maybe and we need to start assessing what people

can actually handle because certain people might be able to handle a lot more than others so you’re right we do need to start looking at

that so JJ also brought up a great point uh you know about our adversaries and we have a few questions again from the

audience related to that right so the first is um pulling on that thread a

little bit more what or how do our adversaries um as well as our allies uh

Define a super soldier and how are we uh doing in

comparison any

thoughts so I’ll give you a thought the on the on the on the adversary side a

lot of this classified yeah right so we can’t even get into that part but on the on the Army side I actually had trouble

figuring that out right I was like okay do we have a vision a public releasable

at least vision of what the super soldier looks like or what the soldier of 2040 looks like or something like

that and I couldn’t find one like I had to make up that that slide that disappeared like I just made that stuff

up right because like we don’t have a standard that’s like okay this is what that person’s GNA look like

um so yeah I don’t know it’s a that’s a hard that’s a hard question to answer um

I would say you know I think I think our soldiers are like the best trained in

the world we spend a lot of time and money on training even though we we don’t always fund the the the TT Peg as

well as it should be but um but in terms of all the other enhancements stuff like like JJ was

talking about the neuro enhancement we’re not doing that we’re just not

and maybe it’s what do you what do you really mean by the best trained when you say best trained is it the hardest

trained or the smart strained I mean because they’re you know they’re over they do crazy things we’re a lot more ethical so maybe that’s we got to kind

of probably decide what we mean by what’s best yeah for our

soldiers so kind of good segue that’s exactly right so you know one of the

questions is is right who in here let’s just see or if you feel comfortable who in here would be a super soldier in your

own mind of whatever it is that a super soldier is I see some hands going up Daredevils yeah so you know some are

probably saying yes in their head yeah yeah but some are saying yes in their head but they not comfortable

raising your hands that’s totally fine but think it so the question really then comes down to like uh as is brought up

here some of these ethics right and the legalities of this and then who owns

this type of thing what happens you know uh if it hits the black market what if

anybody can do this because you know it sounds pretty exciting to always be

chill relaxed in in the face of a storm or a fire right I mean if I’m going to shake my magic eightball I say it’s

going to be on the commercial Market before it ever comes to the do right I mean so I think it’s G to be it’s going

to be what what JJ was talking about earlier with like that you know as Society changes as Things become more accepted just people are doing it on

their own then we’re like oh you know that sounds like a really good idea for the military um and and and this idea of

the ethical boundary and I was kind of thinking this as coach was just talking um you know we can we we have the luxury

of the ethics that we have yes because we are the best army in the world for now right but what happens when that’s

no longer the case are we willing then to stretch some of those rules and some of those bounds and some of those norms

and policies and all that other business so that we have a a better chance in a

in a peer-to-peer fight I mean that’s that’s a highle question that’s like that’s that’s a policy question that’s a

legal question that’s a it’s also a cultural question cultural absolutely I think it’s going to change

for the generations yeah I think the gener Next Generation perhaps the one after that is going to be much more open

than we are when they’re growing up with technology in ways that we we never did I mean we still value putting the

electronics down as I fight with my youngest constantly put it down what I say the other put it down and look out

the window and pretend like you’re interested in anything um because we we

value that as a norm to be able to to sit and be um and she says Mom that’s a

ridiculous notion then I’m bored and her definition of not being bored is having a a phone playing something a computer

playing something a tablet doing something in the background some craft that’s teaching her ano by the way she’s

watching a movie simultaneously and probably eating her value system is almost different right of of what is is

considered um reasonable and appropriate and how much she can take in and at any

one time I I think that’s going to play into some of these decisions going forward and also I mean I I still don’t

tell Walgreens uh what my phone number is because I don’t want them tracking me buying who knows what at Walgreens um

but every other kid who’s under 25 is giving all their information out right and left right they they’re they’re

signed up for everything because they’re very comfortable sharing information um so I I I I think this boundary is gonna

shift I just I don’t know how far I’m sorry yeah it goes back to I think we talked about this a while back

JJ um you and say and we had a conference one I think it was at the H HCI conference about multitasking and

whether we can really you multitask and things like that and you we always said something’s being degraded at all times

you’re really not getting at all and I remember you had a lot of thoughts on that but um that’s where I get with with

depends on the task it depends on the task monotonous task sometimes you actually can increase arousal to allow

maintain so it’s it’s more complex than straightforward and and questionably um

are are children’s brains developing differently who are being born today than than anyone who was born 60 years

ago um and and if it is the case that they are developing differently or they able to handle things differently than

what we say today I mean much like my son’s heart no one said that kid was going to survive to 10 years

old the shock and awe that he runs is just is just over the top well we’re going to start seeing that in everything

right medical science is changing and the way that the children are developing is changing substantially and one last

Quick point on the ethics um if you look at sports um probably most people look

at it from the legality of it whether or not to take steroids or anything like that because everybody wants to win they want to you know get the big checks so

you know it’s about the fact that you get caught you know you get banned so if it wasn’t banned and back in the day you

know they say that everybody was juicing so I think it’s all about ethic I mean the legality of it versus the ethics

yeah and I I see the quote here on your slide um I I think that’s a really good

point I mean I think it’s the same dilemma we were in with When developing the atomic bomb it’s like well if we

don’t do it our enemy going to do it and we’re going to lose the war so um you know it’s it’s I think it’s more of a

question of how far are we willing to go go to be able to defend our values with our military

yeah so I think uh you know the other ethical question here that’s kind of been broached a little bit is uh you

know we’re talking about it a lot of times from that 18y Old on right but you

know again recruitment you will oftentimes try to start at what 16 sometimes younger 10 uh yeah even with

stem see Cadet starts at 10 right so even 10 years old uh but what if it

started even younger uh when we’re talking about these you know uh genotype

and phenotype Al alterations what if it’s started in a lab what if it was a baby just and again

that comes down to these ethical and legal issues of is is it ethical and

legal to grow that is it ethical and legal to enhance that at that age um you

know and then who owns it so you’re talking about growing soldiers Poss what if you did oh so

that’s a qu one of the ti the questions are coming in like Star Wars yeah I think at that point though you’re

getting past military control uh what you may see is

military uh influence so uh for those of you who work in the training space we

put out from the Pentagon uh a book called modernizing learning what’s interesting behind that book so it it

covers birth to 75 and you might wonder why in the world would the Pentagon want to support a

strategic plan to enhance education from birth to 75 and I’ll tell you the reason

I I and I pitched it I said look here’s the problem we’re getting 18y olds who

have three major issues we have overweight children we have undereducated children and we have

problems with self-regulation now certainly we do not have that across the board in our country but these are are

some three major issues that we’re seeing at the 18 and 22y old age range and I said so what’s happening then we

our pool for military availability in other words those that are going to be

eligible is reducing at the time that I pitched it we were at 29% I believe the numbers just came out we’re down to 22%

of people at that age range who are eligible because predominantly those three factors so the question came in

can Department of Education influence the way that we do K12 educ a or actually even looking at Birth to three

because we’re looking at traumas that then show up later and cause uh issues with the individuals as they’re in the

young adulthood and and not able to come into Service uh or does the Pentagon have to start getting involved and start

supporting an understanding from that birth to 18 age range and the answer was

the Pentagon has to start putting out some information so that is not to

control or to create but it is rather to say we we do a ton of research in

Education and Training because we have lives on this on you know at stake and

so we know a lot about how the brain and the Body Works and how development happens and in order to ensure that we

have the opportunity to even recruit individuals who are prepared for advanced military training we have to start thinking about how we develop

positively um the the whole of our society in order to be able to be uh

functional in that 18 to 22 range um if anyone’s interested in that book it is downloadable um it is freely accessible

um it was fully uh released but it’s an interesting take recognizing that um all

of these early experiences are actually ultimately also not just uh affecting

our adult Society RIT large but specifically reducing the number of people that are eligible for

service well if the the technologies that we’re talking about are

commercially available and the younger generation Generations are uh more apt

to to to use those and modify their bodies I mean it may be that you don’t

have to do anything different from a military’s perspective you’ve already got this younger culture coming up that

is enhanced over uh some of these older Generations really good point it is oh

we’re just GNA grow them anyways so it’s but uh it does you know will we own

if if there’s this crazy future where we’re growing soldiers right would we own them I mean see like sea

monkeys in my I mean to some extent you know we already do right Veterans Affairs is a thing right and we pay TR

care forever right we are we are taking care of our we should be taking care of our soldiers until they pass um so in

that respect that continues and that gets back to what we were talking about earlier of like it is not only good for the soldiers but it’s good for VA and

our budget to make sure that we’re not breaking our soldiers and Absolut right so the the the enhancements shouldn’t

hopefully have a negative effect but either way we’re on the hook for taking care of these these folks

anyways so I’d like to pause for just a minute because we do have about 23 minutes left I wanted to let everybody

know too in the audience if you have any other comments that you’re thinking yourself we do have two microphones available also so you can raise your

hand and of course we’ve been passing around the cards um and as you leave just make sure you get your your code scanned in if you didn’t do that at the

door at the entry okay so we welcome you also to join the conversation uh more fluidly too um so so kind of can a

question here oh I got one let’s go hello So when you say like you keep

talking about the youth and the youth to come well often life imitates art so if

you’ve ever read old man’s War you’d be familiar with the concept of using an

older part of the populace to be future soldiers so is there any applicability

for using this technology to either extend our veteran

soldiers that have all of those years of experience on the battlefield or bring

in older more mature individuals that can then perform those abilities at a

more youthful rate I actually like that idea I mean that’s it because they’re a little bit

more seasoned already and they know what they’ve been through they understand that they’re not going in naive so

that’s actually better I think it’s fantastic and I I I would love to see that because

um that experience is invaluable right and as the psychologist

sitting up here um and particularly so my background my formal background is clinical and developmental so I like to

say I I I know how people grow and also when it kind of goes ay um and I have a

lot of heart for our vets um and particularly one of the things that I look at is who self selects to be in the

military the people who want to either be in the military whether whether it’s active duty or civilian have have a need

for purpose you know as I try to explain sometimes to companies it’s it’s not profit driven we are mission driven and

when you’re a Missi driven human and we teach you train you put you into

operations we make your life very very purposeful and then we bring you home and say

relax for a very very long time now it doesn’t feel good to relax you

weren’t wired to relax you weren’t trained to relax you weren’t taught that you were useful relaxed you were taught

that you were useful when you figured out and I don’t know how the Marines do it that duct tapes something together and still get it across I Marines are my

favorite because they figure everything out um and and I’ve often said why are

we not using this population because it’s so valuable not not only to the

services but it’s actually valuable to them as well I think you would substantially reduce depression rates

anxiety rates I mean a lot of that is all the root of it is all this

purposefulness and this worth this feeling of worth um also uh I think

there is a turn in the culture as well so um I’ll out myself I’m 47 I have just

applied as of Sunday all my stuff is in uh to the Navy act to to reserve duty

had to get a lot of waivers because of my age because I’m way too old but when they asked why in the world would you

want to do this I said if I’ve got something to add put me in coach I said I haven’t done operations I haven’t done

active duty because I was busy having children you know I had four children that kept me very busy for a very long

time and used my body in ways that I couldn’t serve but I’m not in terrible

shape I don’t understand why at 42 I I expire right um and and so that that

it’s been an interesting experience talking with the recruiters um who are asking these questions well why would

you want to do this at this AG said I I I think I still have a purpose I think I have something I could bring to the table no I’m probably not very good at

making coffee I can almost guarantee you I’m terrible at it however I have the value of context and uh I understand and

I’m not bothered if you make me Write a brief that you take credit for it don’t bother me in the least I’m old enough I

don’t have an ego it you know um and and but but it has it’s it’s brought up some questions of

like do we have a the CIA I think just erased their age um rules um the other

services are starting to change the rules and if and if we can use people regardless of the physical capabilities

or we can enhance their capabilities why can’t we increase longevity of service I mean 20 years we

know every single person coming out enlisted or officer is going to have another career we already know that and

that’s become part of the the discussion Point why can’t we continue to use them why is it up and out it’s a great

question 100% do we have any other I thought I saw somebody over here that’s okay I’ll continue with these for a

second then that actually builds a little bit on this you know so it is somewhat like a a societal divide if you

will that occurs even um you know right now just with the military and civilian

world uh you know transitioning from that that world uh you know where there

is that purpose and that uh drive and that mission back into the normal world

if you you know if you will um is challenging right and it creates a

separation and also a lot of times employers are reluctant to hire uh those

in service which is such a shame now it seems weird in our space A lot of times but there is a large percentage that is

reluctant to hire those in service because they may come with baggage but they also come with all this leadership

and experience so at the same time getting to the Super Soldier idea is you

know there’s a couple of questions here related that if we have these enhancements is that driving a greater

divide between um you know the military and the civilian world or is it bringing

them closer probably divide I mean we can find anything to divide us nowadays I think I think this would divide us

right I mean think about it if you were if you were up for let’s say you’re in the civilian world and there was a a

veteran a super soldier veteran that is competing for the same job as you and because of their enhancements they are

just more capable they are they are able to process information faster whatever whatever whatever and they’re chosen

over you and you think that was unfair or you’re in a sports situ you know you’re playing sports and you know your

son runs the sub whatever he holds the the mar the the the Manhattan Loop record are people with natural Hearts

looking maybe they don’t know but they’re like well that’s not fair I didn’t have that advantage that’s a great point right so I think it I

absolutely think it’ll divide us that’s not necessarily a bad thing or reason not to do it but I think it’s just

reality yeah from the C Soldier civilian side yes like once they become civilians

but as soldiers themselves like creating a super soldier I think that helps

because you know you can see it when you um at a ball game or something they you know ask the veterans to stand and it’s

just how you know we thank everyone for their service I think it brings us together in that regard so hey we got

better soldiers fighting for us so I’m actually happy about that part it might increase the patriotism

patriotism yeah exactly interesting so uh you know again related to kind of this and the idea of

dividing though then uh you know if we think about Iron Man right Tony Stark is

wealthy yeah you know he’s not he’s you know he’s Rich uh we talk about you know

the first um non astronauts if you will to to kind of go to space that aren’t in

the scientific or engineering world that didn’t have some other reason but that just went they were Rich they were

wealthy um so does becoming a Super Soldier uh you know lay in the hands

then of only the wealthy or who would fund

this yeah I think that’s a good good question I mean there’s there’s uh when when we’ve had discussions on ethics in

the past it’s it’s access right you know if you watch the movie Limitless you know he takes a pill and he become you

know he goes from being a a broke loser to being this You Know Rich highly

successful man and you know it’s yeah what how do you uh level the

playing field when you have technologies that are uh enhancing one person over

another um um so it’s it’s a great ethics question I don’t have the answers to it but you know something something

we have to think about they started fighting over that pill too so that it was a real big situation yeah yeah so I

think the other you know big part of this too is um so we talked a little bit earlier

about blockers right uh you know and and what is going to stop this from

happening um you know what’s the bureaucracy because that’s what we live

right is the bureaucracy what is that going to be what are these regulations going to be um I mean what’s acquisition

going to look like for that when it already takes forever uh when we just add more committees into the mix between

S&T and acquisition you know uh what do you think that’s going to look like ugly

it’s gonna be real ugly I mean you you talked about the institutional Rie review board earlier um you know it’s

definitely greater than minimal risk which is like comes with all these extra rules and things to keep keep the the

soldiers safe but when you move it out of let’s say we’re successful in S&T

okay now you have an acquisition program okay you know typically we just we field

things right we we give you you are in this unit this unit is going to be equipped with this new thing here it is

and here’s the training go everybody gets it yep right we we’ve started doing some selective Fielding a little

differently but generally if you’re an unit that’s getting a capability you are getting the capability but when you’re talking about making

you know some very personal changes and like I am changing you I’m not handing you a

thing the Fielding probably looks different for that maybe it’s volunteer I I don’t know how that would maybe it’s

something that’s available to you um and you can self- select like yes I want

that enhancement I’m going to sign that I want that enhancement and then you’re fielded that enhancement perhaps I mean

that’s probably the lowest barrier of Entry to start I don’t think you could impose this on people and say hey guess

what we’re going to stick this needle in your eyeball and you’re going to have night vision without batteries okay um

but I think if people elect to do it as soldiers they want to be better in this way or have the chance to be better in this way that’s probably the easiest

fastest way to do it but a standard Fielding is is further off than that and

as you saw when you asked them to raise their hands only a few people did that so yep who’s going to who’s going to

step up for that position got a question yes question over here got microphone

uh so with some of the older veterans that feel that they have been possibly

let down or not necessarily supported as well in the health care aspects of what

has happened in the past if we were to create super soldiers of this

content what’s the guarantee that the military will fulfill their end of the

bargain to sustain the their health and their bodily functions until they

continue to go off and that goes back to the cost benefit analysis if we get stuck in a tight

situation where do you think things would go that’s

tough yeah well I guess if for enhancement technologies that the the

hope would be that um not only does it enhance but it also uh diminishes

decline right over time so you maybe uh maybe the veterans would be the

healthiest people around as opposed to uh needing additional care um but yeah I

mean in terms of guaranteeing care I mean I think that’s a a political question that you know

would be answered above my head yeah adding to that um like you

said hopefully they’ll be able to get other jobs or something I mean they’ll be enhanced hopefully that’s that’s part

of it but still no guarantee that they’re going to be taken care of afterwards

political I I think your question is spot on it always has to be part of the question I think though from the the

scientist and and capability level what

we can tell you is what’s possible what we can tell you is the barriers that we run

into break break yeah then you have care for veterans

politics generals and Admirals uh you know there is so much here and there is

so much history that suggests we could do a better job but it would be outside of

the range of this space right there these are these are bifurcated even though they probably should be combined

um but should is is is not always the way that DOD does business because of

AET iety of reasons right which I’m guessing since you asked the question you are well aware of all of these these

um silos that we all deal with and so it I mean I don’t want to speak for the

group but but it is generally the case um within the the scientist Community

for the military that we ask those kinds of questions because we do recognize hey this could have this impact positive or

negative does someone realize that we could do some improvements does someone realize that if we do these things it

could cause issues does someone realize that this thing that they’ve decided is a major issue actually isn’t much of an

issue and we’re excluding people where we shouldn’t but those questions and that connection of communication does

not happen as widely um as we would like it to um and so I think the best that

all of us can do is have these conversations right it’s just constantly so that someone in the audience knows some piece or knows someone where that

information can can be shared more and more and I I guess I feel like that’s the ethical part that we can contri contribute to yeah I mean our our job is

to inform right S&T is going to inform senior leaders who then need to make decisions right so there’s been a

several news articles recently going around about um long-term exposure exposure to our own Blast from weapons

right from firing a rocket launcher right next to your head or working artillery for a long period of time and

OSD has a brain health initiative that’s been running Warfare to brain health which has been running for a while and

they made recommendations say like this is your safe threshold right do not exceed this safe thr threshold and as

far as I know and what at least what the articles are reporting nothing has changed in training right so so somebody did their due diligence said this is

where safety is right above that you’re not safe but to fire you know a Carl gustof right next to your head is double

the safety thresold yeah so it’s like are you know SoCal I think you know they said like they you know they’re trying to reduce some things and um but just

because we find the answer right there’s another step that has to happen to um

prevent things from happening that that shouldn’t be happening and then take care of those who have had that happen I recognize that’s not just PTSD it’s a

brain injury right and deal with it now I will throw out one interesting caveat

which is that if we are doing a better job collecting data because we have these enhancements we might be able to

inform Healthcare in a better way as well um and that is certainly something I I did a I did a tour of the US and I

spent a month talking to a lot of um various veterans groups and um one of

the things that we found was a lot of so a lot of people don’t realize that each um uh veteran care for um the the

hospitals and medical are different across the US it’s not they’re connected but they actually operate quite

differently and so the ones that had a whole bunch of wearable devices that they used at home were showing

substantially better outcomes and it was really impressive to see how those units were were um being able to affect change

it was unfortunate that it was not necessarily being shared widely um but it it was proof positive and they had

very clear benefits um both anecdotally but as well as measurement wise that we

can improve and so some of the things that we’re talking about would probably have a ripple effect of of positive

outcomes of informing Health Care de facto good okay so uh last question for from

the audience for the moment um you know we’ve talked a lot on the offensive side or more generically it appears from the

offensive side but what would you how would you differentiate some of the offensive versus defensive capabilities

that a super soldier would have or would you

differentiate I I guess um you know defensive I I always think about you

know you’re reducing the effects of whatever stressors are being put on put on the Human by being in combat right so

whether that be physical mental psychological um you know those are the

the defensive applications um I mean offensive it can be kind of nebulous you know if you’re

doing decision making I think that that’s a that’s an offensive capability right um you know helping people um make

more effective and quicker decisions is definitely something that I think will

be pivotal in winning more both sides and turn offense or turn defense into

offense yeah um yeah fantastic so with the last five

minutes I have a I have a question for the panelists if you were a super soldier

what capabilities would you have and why give you a moment to think everybody

wants to fly come on say everybody wants to

fly see I want to be Limitless do it all run fast fly you

know see things see through walls all the technology yeah I’d like to be able to

control things with just thought Dr to [Laughter]

who I look at decision- making as a superpower the ability to um take in the

relevant information very quickly and make a good quick decision can be know the difference between life or death and

that kind of situation it’d be nice to be able to do all the other things too um but you know that is one I think that’s attainable in the

nearer term through some even targeted training and and you know techniques and stuff like

that I’m beginning to think we should test our personalities by what we’ve chosen um blue

lollipop I would like to be invisible so I would love to be able to cloak be able

to go anywhere and see digest information see I pick

multiplicity right so you can multiply and be in multiple places at once and optimize your

time that might mean you’re too busy in real life but I think you’re right Jennifer I

think we need a who are you in your dreams where’s Myers Briggs I think we

need our personality test well again we’re back to uh come full circle when someone says H how do you how do you

recruit and and my immediate thought in respon that question was a typically not

the way that we are currently right and I always go back to that scene in um

what is the name of the movie where uh they were doing the the first computer

to be able to um anyway they they selected by crossword puzzle they sent out a

crossword puzzle across the US to see who could do it in you know so many minutes and what they of course were

trying to do was look at other specific skill sets uh that were not typically

tested in the way that we do assessment today so maybe we need to add a new one what is your superpower going to be

we’ll know what we’ll know what category you fit into well it is time uh but we hope that

the conversation and the discussion doesn’t stop here uh it is only Monday

on it6 so uh we hope that this continues into the happy hours and social

networking events that are occurring even this evening as well as through the showroom floor it is open in so be sure

to visit all the exhibitors um and our panelists will stick around for a little bit I hope to uh answer any questions

directly and welcome introductions also so please continue this conversation and

we hope that we have a super soldier of the future this is awesome thank you

guys

am