COL Kevin Schieman

Colonel Kevin Schieman is an Associate Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Philosophy Program at the United States Military Academy at West Point. He recently served as Deputy Program Manager for DARPA's ASIMOV program, which developed standards for assessing the ethical readiness of military autonomous systems.

His research asks what people need in order to exercise sound, ethically grounded judgment over the AI-enabled systems they work alongside. That question runs through his work on lethal autonomous weapons, rule-following under operational complexity, and training design for human-AI teaming. His work has been supported by DARPA, the Army's AI Integration Center at Carnegie Mellon University, and the Army SBIR Office. At West Point, he teaches the ethics of technology, military ethics, and philosophy of mind, and he has led Cadets in studying AI governance with the Army's AI software development teams.

Colonel Schieman has served in both aviation operations and strategic plans and policy assignments. His operational experience includes 24 months deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom and nearly 1,000 combat flight hours in the UH-60 Black Hawk. He later served on the Joint Staff, developing future joint warfighting concepts and autonomous weapons policy. He holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in philosophy from the University of Notre Dame, an M.A. in philosophy from Georgetown University, and a B.S. in mechanical engineering from West Point.