Twenty-third International Conference on Diversity in Organizations, Communities & Nations

Abstract

The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) to force development and force employment activities of Western armed forces have the potential to impact the expertise, norms, and behavior of the officer corps in fundamental ways. While the officer corps has been derived from hegemonic masculinity, changes in social and cultural norms have been slowly influencing Western armed forces. As we move to greater uses of AI – and increasingly rely on hi-tech companies and programmers to build, deploy, and maintain these systems – these modest advancements in diversity and inclusion in the military could be impacted. For example, there are notable gender and ethnicity gaps in the employment of AI programmers. Additionally, AI systems have demonstrated limitations due to data problems in accounting for racial and gender differences in their analysis, resulting in discrimination against minorities in many of their recommendations. Therefore, the more the military relies on AI, the higher the risk that these existing diversity and inclusion gaps will be exacerbated. We explore these concerns and provide considerations on the use of AI in the military as it relates to diversity and inclusion.