Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ordered the use of artificial intelligence to “expedite” investigations by the office that looks into workplace discrimination and sexual harassment and in the early stages of Inspector General inquiries. In particular, Hegseth said AI should be put to work in workplace investigations of generals and admirals.
The AI instructions were in a series of memos released Tuesday by the Pentagon in the wake of Hegseth’s address to senior officers in Virginia.
The memos offer only hints at how AI might be used by investigators, such as to “classify and route complaints” along with scheduling and record keeping.
The memos continue a larger overhaul of the Pentagon’s Inspector General process and the Military Equal Opportunity, or MEO, and Equal Employment Opportunity, or EEO, programs, which Hegseth called for in April. The MEO and EEO look into accusations of racial and sexual discrimination and harassment in the ranks.
The MEO/EEO memo directs the Pentagon’s Director of the Defense Human Resources Activity to “define and allocate funding” for the directorate in charge of EEO investigations and resolutions “to leverage outsourcing and alternative IT solutions, like artificial intelligence to expedite investigation of cases that directly affect general/flag officers and senior executives.”
Another memo reforms the Inspector General system which provides oversight outside of troops’ chain of command and handles investigations into policy violations, mismanagement, improper behavior and misconduct.
“We are liberating an inspector general process — the ‘IG’ — that has been weaponized, putting complainers, ideologues and poor performers in the driver’s seat,” Hegseth said in remarks to generals at Marine Base Quantico Tuesday morning.
Tuesday’s IG memo calls for AI to be used during an initial “credibility assessment,” a fact-finding phase meant to be completed within seven days of a complaint’s filing to determine if a full investigation should be launched. When the Army announced new policies with the “credibility” reviews in June, some critics worried it could weed out genuine complaints, particularly those filed anonymously.
“The military departments should explore the use of artificial intelligence with human oversight to classify and route complaints, enforce deadlines, protect privacy, and maintain audit logs,” the memo states, referring to IG inquiries.
History of EEO in uniform
Following the civil rights movement, former President John F. Kennedy signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law which ensured equality and protection from unlawful discrimination. Title VII of the act also protests employees against workplace discrimination based on sex, race, color, national origin, and religion — and includes federal employees, like members of the military.
Rachel VanLandingham, a former Air Force lawyer and president of the National Institute of Military Justice said the reforms might be an attempt by Pentagon officials to have more influence over investigations by moving the reviews away from local commanders via “outsourcing and computerizing,” and centralizing them at the Pentagon level.
While discrimination policies and investigations are often in the news, she said, the policies and rules behind them generally predate recent administrations, both Democrat and Republican.
“Many of these programs aren’t just because of four years of [President Joe] Biden or because of eight years of [President Barack] Obama. They’re after decades of lessons learned of how do we have a military that brings out the best of its people?,” VanLandingham said. “These changes really are being sold as divorced from the overall context of: There’s long been a problem in the military of racism. There’s long been a problem of misogyny in the military. There’s long been a problem of allowing commanders to exercise their command authority in an abusive way. Therefore, those units are not the most effective.”
Reducing impact on careers
In the April 23 memo, or what Hegseth referred to as the “No More Walking On Eggshells Policy,” he directed a review of the discrimination programs. On Tuesday, he issued more reforms, which include addressing and dismissing discrimination and harassment complaints within 30 days, limiting the impacts of early investigation findings on troops’ careers and punishing troops who “knowingly” and “repeatedly” submit “frivolous” complaints.
“Preventing delays and avoiding the indefinite suspension of careers empowers [Department of War] leaders to get back to doing what they do best, warfighting,” the EEO/MEO memo states.
June updates to the Army’s 15-6 regulation, which governs command-led investigations into potential misconduct like toxic leadership, hinted at the broader Pentagon changes. Then last week, the Army issued a new waiver program that allows soldiers to receive awards, attend military schools, get promoted and make permanent change of station moves. The waiver removes “flags” from soldier records which previously restricted them from career-advancing actions while under investigation.
The new policies also use a new investigative term of “credible evidence,” which Hegseth defined in April as “attributable or corroborated information,” that considers “the original source, the nature of the information, and the totality of the circumstances” to determine if it is “sufficient” for investigators to pursue an inquiry.
Former military lawyers told Task & Purpose that the definition could hamper investigations prompted by anonymous reports.
“Timely adjudication of complaints will minimize the impact of false claims, swiftly provide resolution for all involved, and increase readiness across the total force,” Hegseth wrote in the memo. “I am fully committed to promoting good order and discipline through accountability for all involved in the complaint process.”
