We are in uncharted territory in terms of private capital’s influence on the defense economy. At the same time, federal lawmakers struggle to advance 2027 legislation most likely to support autonomy, AI, c-UAS, industrial base expansion, critical minerals, and other sectors that are key markets for those same companies competing for private financing. The nation requires vision, clarity of opportunity and risk, problem definition, and deliberately investigated solutions – in that order – followed by on-time budgets. 

As the interests of warfighters, taxpayers, industry, and investors converge on the same goal - a dominant, cost-effective, adaptable, resilient American military – there is understandable widespread enthusiasm to leverage private capital interest in defense to accelerate the delivery of innovative technologies at lower cost, shift the financial risk for the development of such technologies from taxpayers to investors, and increase overall competition in the defense market. Now is also the time to anticipate potential fracture points and mitigate them through intelligent design. 

Federal policy on “Super Intelligence” is moving rapidly toward implementation. Following Executive Orders 14434 and 14432 on September 29, the administration and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have advanced work on autonomous systems across public services and digital infrastructure. Yet the legal boundaries of those systems remain unsettled. Who may authorize an autonomous agent to act, how far does that authority extend, and what must happen when the agent’s chosen solution requires permission no one has granted?

The pressure to resolve these questions is growing. In 1953, J. Robert Oppenheimer compared the nuclear powers to “two scorpions in a bottle.” Today’s AI race carries a similar fear of strategic disadvantage. Governments and corporations are deploying increasingly capable systems because they cannot afford to fall behind. Under that pressure, decisions about what machines may do risk becoming assumptions rather than deliberate grants of authority. Voluntary industry controls offer some protection, but one company’s restrictions do not bind its competitors or the systems with which its agents interact.