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Assessing Advanced Dual-Use Technologies Using the Delphi Process

Assessing Advanced Dual-Use Technologies Using the Delphi Process. CONNECTIONS 2015 Robert McCreight Adjunct Professor George Mason University. Assessing Advanced Dual-Use Technologies. Examine the most strategically relevant Look for unitary growth and extrapolation

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Assessing Advanced Dual-Use Technologies Using the Delphi Process

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  1. Assessing Advanced Dual-Use Technologies Using the Delphi Process CONNECTIONS 2015 Robert McCreight Adjunct Professor George Mason University McCREIGHT--GMU---2015

  2. Assessing Advanced Dual-Use Technologies • Examine the most strategically relevant • Look for unitary growth and extrapolation • Assemble technology experts for each technology • Provide expert briefing and 2-page summary • Ask experts to assess 5-10 year development • Ask experts to assess key advancement triggers • Ask experts to identify possible setbacks • Ask experts to review the analysis of other experts • Ask experts to consider convergence [2 or more] To enhance and sharpen strategic threat assessment McCREIGHT--GMU---2015

  3. Dual Use Technologies ..means an existing, or cutting edge technology which has both civilian and military uses and which involves ongoing global research and development. Such technologies can advance human health and promote better crop yields and enhance human life but they also have the innate capacity to be engineered into weapons systems DEFINITION McCREIGHT--GMU---2015

  4. The Delphi ProcessModified A structured solicitation of views by a group of selected experts which is aggregated and synthesized via phased iterative sessions with all interim analyses and assessments codified and sequentially re-edited in summary capture Experts review and edit at least two other expert findings Experts discuss and assess their chosen technology Experts meet in plenary session to discuss risks of convergence Convergence risk tables and summary analyses are reported out Sequestered Summarized Captured for 45 minutes Sifted and re-edited group assessments 1 hour each McCREIGHT--GMU---2015

  5. An Example: Phase 1 STEP 1—[Nanoscience] experts are invited to share their research and examine a 2-page summary paper as they discuss and assess the future evolution of their chosen technology STEP 2-- Experts choose a group leader, allotted 45-50 minutes to identify and summarize the future evolution of their technology out 10-15 years listing advancement triggers, setbacks and dual-use outcomes STEP 3– Flip chart summaries are posted along with a 2-page Handout summary shared with all other successive expert groups McCREIGHT--GMU---2015

  6. The overall 3-phase approach Phase 1: 45-50 min. 2-page expert analysis Phase 2: Two separate sessions 1-hr each Collated Experts White Paper With Combined Risk Assessment Phase 3: Plenary discussion of dual-use outcomes and convergent strategic risks McCREIGHT--GMU---2015

  7. Which Technologies? Defense Science Board reports the USA, “…relies increasingly on the U.S. commercial advanced technology sector to push the technological envelope and enable the Defense Department to ‘run faster’ than its competitors.” • Genomics/proteomics/synthetic biology • Biochemical xenotransplants and synthesis • Cybernetics // Dark Web • Artificial intelligence • Neuroscience • Nanoscience • Robotics • Plasma wave and Tesla technologies • Acoustic Wave technologies McCREIGHT--GMU---2015

  8. Why Convergence?? The definition of technological convergenceis a sensible starting point for the issues raised and the arguments about its strategic significance. Using a utilitarian definition, technological convergence is the tendency for different systems to eventually evolve, blend, and synergistically reinforce and interact with each other, sharing and extracting resources and energy to produce new and unique meta-technological products and blended outcomes. It is precisely the future amalgamation, integration, deliberate blending, and synergistic transformation of discrete technologies into a multi-chimeralike dual-use metatechnology that has the potential to disrupt the global balance of power and alter our definition of asymmetric warfare. We simply do not yet know which technologies might converge and present a strategic threat. R.McCreight, Convergent Technologies and Future Strategic Security Threats, Strategic Studies Quarterly, Winter 2013, pp 11-19 McCREIGHT--GMU---2015

  9. What is the Significance of Dual Use TechnologyConvergence? It is abundantly clear CT activities such as bioinformatics, DNA diagnostics, molecular electronics, and neural computation are revolutionizing the traditional interaction between researchers, industry, and society. New models for research management are evolving based upon networks which break down the barriers between traditional disciplines Among other things, this means both a cross-disciplinary and transdisciplinary array of interactions, collaborations, and exchanges will take place over the next decade. Genomics and neuroscience will combine, cyber systems and artificial intelligence will collaborate, and robotics and nanobiological research will merge over the course of the next 10 years. As a result, only experts involved in Successive and intensive Delphi iterations of expert cohort analysis can properly estimate the net strategic significance of this phenomenon McCREIGHT--GMU---2015

  10. Questions? • Thanks Robert McCreight, Adjunct Professor George Mason University remc48@gmail.com McCREIGHT--GMU---2015

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