AI to Autonomously Select Military Targets
Leading nuclear nations are not moving towards restricting the use of artificial intelligence in their armaments. The trajectory is set towards AI independently making decisions about annihilating enemies without human intervention.
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Prominent developments in this field are led by experts from the USA, Israel, and China. The focus is primarily on swarms of drones operated by AI, with the technology being granted the capability to autonomously select military targets, whether enemy personnel, equipment, or vital infrastructure.
The Pentagon is presently engaged in deploying a substantial number of AI-driven drones. U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks commented on these initiatives, noting that such lethal drone swarms are intended to offset the numerical advantage in troops and armaments currently held by the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA).
“We'll counter the PLA's mass with mass of our own, but ours will be harder to plan for, harder to hit, harder to beat,” Hicks elaborated.
The swift implementation of advanced language models is also influencing the ongoing war in Ukraine, which is contending with Russian forces. Media reports indicate that Ukrainian AI-equipped strike drones can identify and eliminate targets autonomously, currently focused on enemy vehicles. However, directing drones against enemy forces directly still requires human operators.
The creation of software that would allow drones to autonomously identify and choose targets is a subject of intense debate at the United Nations. Several nations are advocating for a resolution that stringently restricts the use of autonomous killer drones in combat, with a primary concern over the ethical aspects. The pivotal question being posed is whether AI should be allowed to independently make life-and-death decisions regarding human beings.
This is really one of the most significant inflection points for humanity. What's the role of human beings in the use of force — it's an absolutely fundamental security issue, a legal issue and an ethical issue,
remarks Austrian negotiator Alexander Kmentt.
However, the U.S. delegation, along with representatives from Russia, Australia, and Israel, are advocating for such a resolution, if passed, to be merely advisory. This approach appears to stem from a deep-seated distrust of geopolitical rivals.
“I don’t think people we would be up against would do that, and it would give them a huge advantage if we put that limitation on ourselves,” explains Frank Kendall, the Air Force secretary.
Previously, in one of our features, we’ve explored how global militaries might use the metaverse.
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