The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency has set itself an extraordinary ambition: omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotence. Under Vice Admiral Frank Whitworth, the spy agency responsible for location-based intelligence expanded its mandate to match the explosion of global sensors feeding data to AI systems - pursuing what he described as continuous surveillance "from seabed to space."

The scope of that ambition is revealed in journalist Katrina Manson's investigation published in WIRED, based on interviews at NGA headquarters and nonpublic documents, "Hvylya" reports.

Whitworth wanted NGA to watch the world in minute, constant detail. While the NSA could listen in on global communications, NGA could see everything. The agency tracked movements at 49,000 airfields worldwide. Whitworth pushed for GPS - or a similar navigation system - on the moon. In case GPS was jammed or hacked, NGA was developing alternative mapping systems based on magnetics, gravity, remote sensing, celestial navigation, and elevation data.

The most striking development: NGA began producing machine-generated intelligence reports for US decision-makers that "no human hands" had touched. AI was not only finding targets but writing the analysis that shaped American policy. NGA poured hundreds of millions into data labeling to feed Maven's ever-expanding computer vision models.

Joe O'Callaghan, NGA's director of AI mission, captured the institutional mood without reservation. "Maven is a movement," he said. "We've drunk the Kool-Aid." James Rizzo, chief data officer for NORAD and NORTHCOM, described Maven as the connective tissue between commands - how NORAD now "talked" to forces across the globe. But he also warned that relying so heavily on a single AI platform for a shared picture of the world "could go very wrong."

"We'll never get anything done if we wait for perfection, so we take a little bit of risk," Rizzo said. He quickly added: "But we're not building the WOPR" - a reference to the fictional supercomputer in the 1983 film WarGames that nearly triggered World War III through an automated nuclear launch system.

Also read: OpenAI's Chief Scientist Warns AI Creates "Unprecedented" Concentration of Power.