Overview

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The Special Competitive Studies Project (SCSP), in partnership with Coursera, created this custom course to upskill national security professionals in AI. SCSP is the premier voice in the national security space, driving recommendations and conversations about the crucial role that emerging technologies, especially artificial intelligence, play in the national security and competitiveness space that defines our world today. This course will provide hands-on, use-case driven upskilling in AI for mid-career national security practitioners. While many AI educational offerings are available for senior leaders, or as basic fundamental skills for everyone, there are no publicly available, free, and asynchronous courses targeting national security practitioners with real-world tactical applications. Each module is designed to address different dimensions of learning how to use AI to be more effective and efficient for national security missions and why being AI-ready is so important. Our lessons feature a range of senior leaders in national security who both demo these tools and explain their importance in operations today. The course includes hands-on training with screencast examples and prepared worksheet exercises to help learners experiment with these tools on actual use cases across various career fields including operations, human resources, acquisition, policy, and financial management. The United States will not maintain global dominance unless we make bureaucracy go faster and leverage AI tools at scale for operational advantage. This course will advance learners’ ability to leverage AI tools today for their mission and to become a change agent in their organization to drive AI adoption at scale.

Syllabus

AI in National Security: The Imperative

The United States will not maintain global dominance unless we make bureaucracy go faster and leverage AI tools at scale for operational advantage. This module explains the imperative for all national security professionals to become AI-ready and what AI megatrends will impact mission sets in the near term.

AI in National Security: Practical Applications

This module provides a clear definition of AI before working through four common GenAI tools with demonstrations specific to national security missions. It then reviews examples of agency-specific AI tools and the benefits for practitioners to leverage their organization's internal data. It also provides downloadable resources on best practices.

AI in National Security: How to Leverage AI Tools for Your Mission

This module is about leveraging AI tools to advance your individual productivity. A screencast demo walks through an example common for the intelligence community before providing downloadable resources to compare model outputs and determine which model to use for a given task. A second lesson provides hands-on training through do-it-yourself exercises in worksheets specific to different career fields including operations, acquisition, policy, human resources, research, logistics, analysis, and financial management.

AI in National Security: Agency AI Playbook

This module is about leveraging AI tools to advance organizational goals. Upon completion, you will be able to answer the following questions: (1) Why aren’t AI tools already adopted at scale in my organization? and (2) how can I be a change agent for my organization by designing and implementing an AI Playbook regardless of my role or where I sit?