The Convergence - The Army's Mad Scientist Podcast

This is a special off-schedule episode of The Convergence where we talk with a mystery guest, possibly for the last time!

[ Editor’s Note:   It has almost been a decade since U.S. forces and coalition partners assisted Iraqi government forces in dislodging ISIS fighters from  Mosul  in what some observers described as the toughest urban battle since World War II.  With the Islamic Resistance Movement’s (aka Hamas) October 7, 2023 cross-border terror attacks on Israel and subsequent Israel Defense Forces’ combat opera...

[ Editor’s Note:   Grizzled readers of the  Mad Scientist Laboratory  will recall their well-thumbed copies of the forty-year-old FM 100-2 series,  The Soviet Army .  U.S. Army Soldiers and Leaders from the Cold War-era were expected to know their Soviet adversaries’  Operations and Tactics ;  Troops, Organization, and Equipment ; and  Specialized Warfare and Rear Area Support  cold — as internati...

[ Editor’s Note:   As longtime readers of the Army’s  Mad Scientist Laboratory  know, our adversaries are deploying capabilities to fight the U.S. Joint Force through multiple layers of stand-off in all domains – space, cyber, air, sea, and land. Per the  Defense Intelligence Agency ‘s  Challenges to Security in Space 2022: Space Reliance in an Era of Competition and Expansion : “Between 2019 and...

[ Editor’s Note:   Regular readers of the  Mad Scientist Laboratory  are familiar with the potentially disruptive effects of  cognitive  and  neurowarfare . As guest blogger  Robert McCreight  observed, “ Most non-kinetic threats — or the NKT spectrum — consist of silent, largely undetectable technologies capable of inflicting damaging, debilitating, and degrading physical and neural effects on it...

[ Editor’s Note:   Regular consumers of  Army Mad Scientist  content — via this blog site and  The Convergence  podcast — understand how wargaming can enhance Professional Military Education (PME), hone cognitive warfighting skills, and broaden our understanding of the Operational Environment. Wargaming removes hierarchies and encourages players to attempt innovative solutions, while also creating...

[ Editor’s Note:   As we  reported  earlier this month, “ The Operational Environment is increasingly lethal with the  ubiquity of sensors a nd proliferation of  battlefield automation facilitating effective precision and massed strike capabilities.  Forces that can be sensed are targeted, and if targeted, are destroyed or rendered inoperable.  ” This increasingly transparent battlespace has been...

[ Editor’s Note:   Regular consumers of  Army Mad Scientist  content — via this blog site and  The Convergence  podcast — will understand how wargaming can enhance Professional Military Education (PME), hone cognitive warfighting skills, and broaden our understanding of the Operational Environment.  Wargaming removes hierarchies and encourages players to attempt innovative solutions, while also cr...

[ Editor’s Note:   Army Mad Scientist continues to explore issues impacting the Operational Environment, especially those directly affecting U.S. Army operations in the contemporary battlespace. Over the past decade-plus, dual use automation technologies have increasingly been weaponized by state and non-state actors alike, democratizing warfighting capabilities in the air, land, and sea domains. ...

[ Editor’s Note:   Army Mad Scientist has extensively explored how Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI/ML) can be harnessed to enhance our Warfighters’ ability to fight at machine speed and sustain our decisive Soldier overmatch. But as frequent contributor  COL Stefan J. Banach  (USA-Ret.) has noted, the evolution and convergence of technologies has added a new  non-kinetic battle sp...

[ Editor’s Note:   Regular readers of the  Mad Scientist Laboratory   and listeners to  The Convergence  podcast know that our Pacing Threat — China — is feverishly modernizing its People’s Liberation Army (PLA).  In addressing the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on October 16, 2022, China’s  President Xi Jinping   stated  that quickly elevating the People’s Liberation...

[ Editor’s Note:   Sunday morning’s tropical idyll was shattered as the adversary’s surprise attack caught our naval, ground, and air forces completely unprepared. An hour and a half later, more than 2,400 U.S. Service members and civilians had been killed, with almost another 1,200 wounded. Despite  three missed tactical warnings  that could have alerted our local defenses of the impending attack...

[Editor’s Note: In recent weeks, Mad Scientist Laboratory has featured a number of podcasts and associated blog posts exploring the democratization of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its potential ramifications for Warfighters and the Operational Environment (OE). From generating better proposals from a broader array of defense contractors, exploring the future of warfare and OE trends, the conve...

" We found that people systematically were more willing to reveal confidential or sensitive information to a virtual human than to a real person"   [ Editor’s Note: Artificial Intelligence (AI) is an emerging game-changer technology for our Warfighters — as Dr. James Mancillas espoused in a previous post, “AI systems offer the potential to continue maximizing the advantages of information superior...

[Editor's Note:  Crowdsourcing and Storytelling are two of Army Mad Scientist's most effective tools in exploring future possibilities regarding the Operational Environment. Crowdsourcing helps us harvest ideas, thoughts, and concepts from a wide variety of interested individuals, helping us to diversify thought and challenge conventional assumptions.  Storytelling — creative fictional writing and...

[ Editor’s Note:   Mad Scientist is an Army initiative and Community of Action that continually explores the Operational Environment and the changing character of warfare. We connect the intellect of the Nation to the Army and serve as an on-ramp for academia, industry, and other parts of the Government to share their ideas and innovations. Our latest episode of  The Convergence  podcast features...

In today’s post and podcast, we feature the winning submission from our  Back to the Future Writing Contest  —  Task Force Wolf  — as a short audiobook and then interview its author — proclaimed Mad Scientist  LTC Daniel Gomez  — about his inspiration for the story, the impact of democratized technology and ubiquitous connectivity on the future of warfare, and why we should be experimenting with t...

“The Convergence of AI, robotics, and cyber-warfare could create new and highly complex military capabilities such as autonomous weapons systems that can make decisions in real time”  —  ChatGPT [ Editor’s Note:   As described in the previous episode of  The Convergence  podcast, large language models like  ChatGPT  — democratizing the power of artificial intelligence (AI) — will potentially revol...

[ Editor’s Note: Large language models like ChatGPT — democratizing the power of artificial intelligence — have rocked industry and academia with their potential to revolutionize how humans process vast quantities of information and generate content. Our Federal Government, including the Department of Defense and its constituent Services, will similarly be transformed as myriad processes begin to...

General Robert Brown  (USA-Ret.) is an experienced commander who has led at every level, from platoon through Army Service Component Command. Serving as Commanding General of U.S. Army Pacific, General Brown led the Army’s largest service component command responsible for 106,000 Soldiers across the Indo-Pacific Region before his September 2019 retirement. General Brown is a 1981 graduate of the U...

General Gary M. Brito  assumed duties as the 18th Commanding General, United States Army TRADOC, on September 8, 2022.  He is responsible for building and sustaining a highly trained, disciplined, and fit Army by acquiring the best people, training the most lethal Soldiers, developing the most professional leaders, guiding the Army’s culture, and shaping the future force.  In today’s podcast,  Gen...

Joanna Siekiera is an international lawyer and Doctor of Social Sciences in public policy sciences. She studied under a New Zealand Government scholarship at the Victoria University in Wellington. Her specialization is legal and political relations in the South Pacific, and the law of armed conflict. She is prodigious author, having written a book, co-authored three monographs, over 90 scientific...

John Bicknell  founded  More Cowbell Unlimited  to help America remain a beacon of hope and strength on the world stage. America must adopt Process Dominance as a core capability in order to innovate and survive in the Information Age.  His vision is for process technologies to be as ubiquitous as processes are.  John is a national security thought leader and passionate analytics visionary.  He ha...

[ Editor’s Note:   Army Mad Scientist is pleased to present our latest episode of  The Convergence  podcast, recorded on location at  I/ITSEC 2022 , the world’s largest modeling and simulation conference in Orlando, Florida.  Co-hosts  Luke Shabro and  Matt Santaspirt  spoke with  Dr. Maria Kozhevnikov  about non-relaxing meditative states, enhanced cognition, the relationship between video games...

[ Editor’s Note:   Army Mad Scientist is pleased to present our latest episode of  The Convergence  podcast, recorded on location at  I/ITSEC 2022 , the world’s largest modeling and simulation conference in Orlando, Florida.  Co-hosts   Luke Shabro  and  Matt Santaspirt  spoke with proclaimed Mad Scientist  Jenny McArdle  from the Center for a New American Security,  Cmdr. Paul Grøstad  from NATO...