Integration – the Goldilocks factor 
The Integrated Review, Multi-Domain Integration, The Integrated Operating Concept, Multi-Domain Battle,, the list goes on. These concepts define US and UK ideas of how to fight and win in the future, and they all have a common underpinning premise: integrate better.  But what is ‘better’ integration? Counter-intuitively to many, better integration is not as simple as more integration. ‘Better’ integration doesn’t just enable efficient communications, it enables systemic learning and memory, collective intelligence, speed of response, and effective adaption. Increased integration, but done badly, induces blindness, slower responses, bloat, and systemic stupidity. In an era where how data flows across a military system is going to matter more, what are the lessons from DeepMind’s research, paper plates, cats, the P-38 Lightning, the biggest theoretical artificial intelligence, the disaster that is the human eyeball, and even how you are sitting in that chair. 

Lieutenant Colonel Al Brown is a Visiting Research Fellow at Oxford. In addition to all the things one might expect in a twenty-year military career in the post-9/11 era, Al was previously the lead for Defence on the study of global trends in robotics and artificial intelligence and their impacts on conflict. He has been one of the group of government experts providing advice to and speaking at the United Nations, and an occasional guest lecturer at various universities, the Royal United Services Institute, and the Alan Turing Institute. 

A sandwich lunch will be served at 12.40
Date: 26 October 2021, 13:00 (Tuesday, 3rd week, Michaelmas 2021)
Venue: Manor Road Building, Manor Road OX1 3UQ
Venue Details: Seminar Room G
Speaker: Lt. Col. Al Brown (British Army)
Organising department: Department of Politics and International Relations (DPIR)
Organiser: Changing Character of War Centre (CCW)
Organiser contact email address: info@ccw.ox.ac.uk
Part of: Changing Character of War (CCW) Seminar Series
Booking required?: Not required
Cost: Free
Audience: Public
Editor: Elizabeth Robson