Download ECO290E: Game Theory

Assessing Advanced DualUse Technologies Using
the Delphi Process
CONNECTIONS 2015
Robert McCreight
Adjunct Professor
George Mason University
McCREIGHT--GMU---2015
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Assessing Advanced DualUse Technologies
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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
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Dual Use Technologies
DEFINITION
..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
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The Delphi Process
Modified
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
Phase 1
Experts discuss
and assess their
chosen technology
Sequestered
Summarized
Captured for
45 minutes
Phase 2
Experts review
and edit at least
two other expert
findings
Sifted and re-edited
group assessments
1 hour each
Phase 3
Experts meet in
plenary session to
discuss risks
of convergence
Convergence risk
tables and summary
analyses are
reported out
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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
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The overall 3-phase approach
Phase 1:
45-50 min.
2-page
expert analysis
Phase 2:
Two separate
sessions
1-hr each
Phase 3:
Plenary discussion of
dual-use outcomes
and convergent
strategic risks
McCREIGHT--GMU---2015
Collated
Experts
White
Paper
With
Combined
Risk
Assessment
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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.”
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Genomics/proteomics/synthetic biology
Biochemical xenotransplants and synthesis
Cybernetics // Dark Web
Artificial intelligence
Neuroscience
Nanoscience
Robotics
Plasma wave and Tesla technologies
Acoustic Wave technologies
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Why Convergence??
The definition of technological convergence is 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
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What is the Significance of Dual
Use Technology
Convergence?
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
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Questions?
• Thanks
Robert McCreight, Adjunct Professor
George Mason University
[email protected]
McCREIGHT--GMU---2015
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