
"If not me, then who?"
-- Lt. Travis Manion
This is an exciting moment for me, and the culmination of sixteen years of work that consistently faced challenges, gaps, silos, and yet opportunities. Afforded by a diverse career and huge range of interests in public safety, emergency services, mental health and healthcare, national security, history and the arts, sports, and so many other areas of humanity; I have been privileged to consistently meet fascinating and astounding people toiling hard at little slices of humankind problems.
However, I have often and regularly arrived at frustrating moments where I kept asking the question why aren’t these people and places talking to each other to solve this problem?
The need for multidisciplinary approaches has never been more critical. In an increasingly complex world, the challenges we face—whether in public health crises, emergency response, or community safety—cannot be effectively addressed in isolation. Emerging technologies is heightening this complexity and introducing both new challenges as well as new opportunities for solutions. Every discipline is being affected in a different way by these emerging technologies and has to understand the how's, the why's, and what comes next. Each discipline offers unique insights and tools, but it is through collaboration that we can create comprehensive solutions that truly resonate with the needs of our communities.
One of my primary objectives is to establish collaborative networks that bring together experts from various fields. By fostering an environment where public safety professionals can engage with mental health advocates, healthcare providers, artists, and historians, we can create innovative solutions that are informed by a multitude of perspectives. This cross-pollination of ideas not only enhances problem-solving but also allows us to truly understand how new technologies are creating a much more complex network of interactions as individuals to our communities.
We have much work to do. The harm reduction and human services fields are far behind the exponential growth in artificial generative intelligence, augmented realities, and autonomous systems.
January 1, 2025, brought that into sharp focus. The twin violent events; a terrorist attack on New Orleans and a firebombing using a Cybertruck in Las Vegas; showcased the growing entanglement of emerging technologies being used for harm. The New Orleans attacker used augmented reality glasses from Meta to film the location prior to his attack as part of his research & planning cycle in his pathway to violence. The Las Vegas bombing incident was aided in planning and design through ChatGPT. These are not the first incidents of violence or harm through these new technologies either. A teenager was successful in suicide after being encouraged to do so by character.AI, a generative AI that is advertised as being "uncensored". A British youth was arrested after arming himself with a crossbow and setting out to kill the Queen, partially radicalized by the chatbot app Replika that uses generative AI.
There are many efforts out there at understanding this, of course, and the alarm has definitely been sound. The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point writes that "with the arrival and rapid adoption of sophisticated deep-learning models such as ChatGPT, there is growing concern that terrorists and violent extremists could use these tools to enhance their operations online and in the real world. Large language models have the potential to enable terrorists to learn, plan, and propagate their activities with greater efficiency, accuracy, and impact than ever before. As such, there is a significant need to research the security implications of these deep-learning models." [1]
Organizations such as the Global Network on Extremism and Technology has written numerous articles on technology and violent extremism, as well as the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism and the George Washington Program on Extremism to just name a few. The academic research and exploration of these technologies and their impact continues at great pace.
With the arrival and rapid adoption of sophisticated deep-learning models such as ChatGPT, there is growing concern that terrorists and violent extremists could use these tools to enhance their operations online and in the real world.
But how do we apply this research in a meaningful way? How do we get technologies and these forming bodies of work into fields that traditionally lag years, if not decades, behind the technical power curve and experience such limited capacity due to understaffed workforces that integrating the latest research-based modalities into their practices seem like a Sisyphean task? How can we harness this to help a tiny remote Alaskan village on an isolated island, or assist the burdens of a local sexual violence prevention community organization struggling with staffing and overworked educators? Practitioners in fields such as social work, human services, threat management, violence prevention and harm reduction are often not at the same table as technologists, extremist ideology researchers, national security program developers, and AI academic ethicians.
I've met many brilliant individuals, uncovered incredible research and cutting-edge practices, and have explored some of these efforts in emerging technologies. This was most evident when I was invited to join the State Solutions Working Group at Eradicate Hate Global Summit 2024 as the only representative from Alaska. The incredible people and initiatives there reinforced my strong passion to start connecting these worlds of creative solutions to the local, isolated communities that are usually not part of the larger troubleshooting conversations.
It’s long been a goal of mine to facilitate connections and build bridges to link these brilliant individuals and efforts together to make our communities, our networks, our work better and stronger. With this mission and all its exciting momentum, I’m embarking on a journey to bring that goal the closest it’s ever been!
The current vision is to bring together a variety of thought leaders with diverse backgrounds to guide and steer projects, initiatives, and organizational efforts to explore and research how to assist communities and individuals reduce harm exposure through a multidisciplinary, research-based locally-focused approach shaped by several pillars:
1.  The intersectionality of emerging technologies, individual-community communication networks and interactions, radicalization to violent extremism, and youth safety.
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2. The enhancers and mitigators to harm through gender-based and sexuality cultural narratives.
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3. The impact of, and accessibility to, initiatives & research for remote, rural, nomadic/alternative, and at-risk communities that lack connection to larger networks.
I want the very core of it to be rooted in a whole of community ideology and be truly multidisciplinary in nature by gathering a diverse set of leaders and practitioners and researchers to lead the charge. I strive that we create a place where all our participating members individual efforts and works can be unified, shared, and collaborated with to achieve the following through this entity and the guiding pillars:
1. Identifying best practices, emerging research, and innovative technologies that are underutilized in communities and institutions due to technical, cultural, or accessibility barriers
2. Utilizing emerging technologies and siloed bodies of knowledge to innovate local, accessible, and applicable solutions through education, technical developments, and projects
3. Bridging gaps between global and national large-scale research and initiatives to local organizations and community-based institutions through collaborative, innovative, and interdisciplinary approaches
4. Focusing on the impactful and cutting-edge fields of artificial generative intelligence, violent extremism, automation systems, social media networks and local communities, open-source intelligence, youth safety, and behavioral threat assessment and management
I hope this is the beginning of getting more of these efforts in the places where it matters, our local groups, communities and small-scale initiatives.
Together, we can build bridges, close gaps, share information, create outcomes.
Let’s break free from silos!
Caleb Lovelace, Principal Founder
About the Author
Caleb Lovelace has been working in the field of public safety in Alaska for over seventeen years. As a life-long Alaskan, he is dedicated towards violence prevention in The Last Frontier and has been working to build more awareness and involvement in behavioral threat assessment and management in Alaska as a tool to prevent targeted violence. He conducts protective operations management and leads behavioral threat assessment and management efforts for the State of Alaska as well physical security program development efforts covering over 28 facilities, 600 personnel and 663,268 square miles in some of the nation’s most remote communities and formidable terrain.
Caleb currently serves as the Satellite Captain for Alaska in the Northwest Chapter of Association of Threat Assessment Professionals. He is currently pursuing a Graduate Certificate in Business Analytics & Artificial Intelligence from the University of Alaska Anchorage and will be entering his Masters of Science in Forensic Psychology from National University in Q4 2025. He is a volunteer with Team Rubicon disaster response organization, coaches and competes in strength sports, and is a passionate advocate for advancing Allyship in communities across the nation. He is a strong believer in the nomadic movement as a way to access and understand communities and has lived for several years as a full-time nomad across the Pacific Northwest in his self-converted campervan!
He is the Principal Founder of SILO².
Footnotes
[1] Weimann, G., Pack, A. T., Sulciner, R., Scheinin, J., Rapaport, G., & Diaz, D. (2024). Generating terror: The risks of generative AI exploitation. *Combating Terrorism Center at West Point*. Retrieved from https://ctc.westpoint.edu/generating-terror-the-risks-of-generative-ai-exploitation/
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