How Cyber Command is building its AI cyber war playbook - Axios

U.S. Cyber Command's chief AI officer, Gen. Reid Novotny, declares they'll test and deploy the 'strongest possible AI models regardless of politics or country of origin' — because what could possibly go wrong when the nation's cyber defense relies on black-box models from companies with questionable safety records? General Novotny sounds like a tech bro who just discovered the term 'offensive cyber operations' and wants to automate them with the most cutting-edge, untested AI available. It's a recipe for disaster wrapped in a flag.

The Pentagon is funding pilots of commercial AI capabilities — meaning Anthropic, OpenAI, or whoever can schmooze their way into a contract. The same companies that can't stop their models from hallucinating legal citations or suggesting poison recipes are now being asked to defend U.S. military networks. And the policy framework? Laughable. There's barely any oversight of AI in civilian contexts, let alone for cyber warfare. The regulatory gap here isn't a gap — it's a chasm.

But hey, at least they're testing the 'strongest possible' models. What could possibly go wrong? Maybe the AI will accidentally start a cyber war with a nation-state because it misinterpreted a routine network scan as an attack. Or maybe it'll leak classified data due to a prompt injection. But don't worry, General Novotny has a plan: it's called 'we'll figure it out.' Cheers to progress.