Before the summit between Chinese President Xi Jinping and his American counterpart Joe Biden, suggestions spread that the two men would agree to ban lethal autonomous weapons.
The summit did not produce such an agreement, but some experts see artificial intelligence as an important topic that is beginning to bring about changes in armed conflicts and in the competition for global dominance.
Observers say Beijing is investing so heavily in artificial intelligence that it may be able to change the balance of power in the Asia-Pacific region and perhaps beyond.
This has profound implications for the world order that has long been dominated by the United States.
“It is not about worrying that we are no longer the dominant power in the world, but rather about the dangers of living in a world in which the Chinese Communist Party becomes the dominant power,” said a report prepared by a committee of experts led by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt.
Here are some uses of AI in the art of war.
Autonomous weapons
All types of weapons – robots, drones or torpedoes, for example – can become autonomous systems thanks to advanced sensors governed by artificial intelligence algorithms that allow the computer to “see”.
Autonomy does not mean that a weapon “can wake up in the morning and decide to go to war,” says UC Berkeley computer science professor Stuart Russell.
He explains, “They are weapons capable of locating, selecting, and attacking human targets or targets that contain humans inside, without human intervention.”
Killer robots in science fiction films depicting a bleak world are an obvious example of autonomy, but perhaps not very practical.
“There are those who are exploring this as well, but in my opinion these robots are the least useful,” Russell adds.
Most of these weapons are still in the concept or prototype stages, but the war between Russia and Ukraine has provided a glimpse of their potential.
Remotely controlled drones are not new, but they are increasingly autonomous and used by both sides, forcing them to flee in search of underground shelters.
This could be one of the biggest immediate changes, says Russell.
“The likely consequence of having autonomous weapons is that if anyone shows up on the battlefield, they can be killed,” says Russell.
Autonomous weapons could have many potential advantages for an attacking army: they can be more efficient, can be produced at a lower cost, and eliminate difficult human emotions such as fear or anger on the battlefield.
But these advantages raise ethical questions.
Because they are low-cost and easy to produce, Russell says, there would be no limits to the firepower an attacker could use. “I could simply fire a million of them at once if I wanted to wipe out an entire city or an entire ethnic group,” says Russell.
Autonomous vehicles
Submarines, boats and aircraft capable of operating independently could provide a major boost to reconnaissance, surveillance and logistics activities in remote or dangerous environments.
Such vehicles are at the heart of the “Replicator” program launched by the US Department of Defense to counter China’s superiority in human capabilities.
The goal of this program is to be able to deploy several thousand cheap and easy-to-replace systems in a short time in various fields from the Navy to outer space, according to US Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks.
Hicks explains that throwing many of these systems “into space at the same time (…) makes it impossible to eliminate or damage them all.”
Several companies are developing and testing autonomous vehicles, such as California-based Anduril, which touts autonomous underwater vehicles “effective for a variety of types of defense and commercial missions” including long-range ocean sensing, mine countermeasures and anti-submarine combat.
Tactical software
Tactical software can greatly assist human planners, especially as it is powered by artificial intelligence and able to collect huge amounts of data thanks to satellites, radars, sensors and intelligence equipment.
Earlier this year, Alexander Wang, president of the artificial intelligence company Scale AI, said during a US Congressional hearing that “everyone in the[Department of Defense]has to understand that data is actually the ammunition in the AI war.”
He added, “We have the largest fleet of military hardware in the world. This fleet generates 22 terabytes of data every day. So, if we can prepare and use this data generated by AI-ready data sets, we can have an insurmountable data advantage when it comes to… Military use of artificial intelligence.
Skill AI has entered into a contract to deploy linguistic software on a secret network belonging to a large US Army unit. Its chatbot, called Donovan, will allow leaders to plan and act in minutes rather than weeks.
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