FORT INDIANTOWN GAP, Pa. — Pennsylvania National Guard Soldiers and civilian employees participated in an Artificial Intelligence 201 course Feb. 11–12.
The course, taught by U.S. Army War College faculty, aimed to prepare leaders to responsibly integrate artificial intelligence into military decision-making while reinforcing critical thinking and mission command principles.
“A lot of people find it very scary, and just like with any new technology, we should be cautious," said Lt. Col. Kelly Ihme, an assistant professor at the U.S. Army War College and one of the course’s instructors. "Trust but verify. But this is a computer program. It's predictive math.”
AI 101 introduces Soldiers to the basics of AI, including how to use and understand it, while AI 201 focuses on critical thinking and effective AI prompting.
“At the War College, we're starting to develop that type of course," Ihme said. "It’s more about, how do we think about problems? And then where does AI get inserted into those problem sets? So that we're never taking the human out of the loop, but we're stepping up the critical thinking and really engaging critical skills questions on AI and where it fits.”
The students found the classes useful and knowledgeable, even wanting to attend more in the future.
“If they had another AI class, I would go again,” said Maj. Maria Myers, logistics branch chief at Joint Force Headquarters. "I would even do this exact same level again, just for repetition and to make sure that I'm still using it correctly, because I do plan to try to implement it in a couple of ways already that they had mentioned."
Ihme said the 201 course pushes students to dig deeper than the nuts and bolts of AI. The class encourages them to approach AI with a leadership mindset.
“It's a mission command skill. And if you're not using AI with some of those mission command ideals in mind, you're going to get icky outputs or less efficient outputs, and then you're going to put AI aside,” said Ihme. “You're not going to throw a private aside and tell them they're an ineffective private because you didn't provide them the leadership they needed to succeed. It's the same with AI.”
Myers said that while she believes AI should be used with caution, it remains a helpful tool for saving time. But, she emphasized that users need to understand how to properly use and prompt AI before utilizing it for work.
“I’m sure some people will think it's a pain, and there will be people that are against it, because it's different," Myers said. "But I think that this class and the level it goes into is a good introductory class because you need to have the knowledge and the understanding and the information from the human aspect to get the appropriate answer.”
The Pennsylvania National Guard is hoping to expand these classes in an effort to have Fort Indiantown Gap become an AI center of excellence, Imhe said. Ihme said she is ready for the next step of AI in the Army.
“Let's keep providing classes like this, both foundational and thinking classes, so that we can figure out, not just that we're playing with AI, but that we're taking the next leap of using AI to propel us forward,” Ihme said.