Another day, and another request of more budgets for U.S. defense and this time it's all about A.I. or the supposed lack of coherent utility, force integration, and procurement issues within the U.S. military - something I don't particularly buy since the U.S. is both absorbing and learning from the two concurrent conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza.
Written by: Gen. Mark A. Milley (ret.) former Chairman of the Joints Chief
Eric Schmidt former C.E.O. of Google (formerly known as do No Evil) now known as Evil is good.
Although, these following paragraphs were an interesting read:
ALL SYSTEMS GO
It has often been difficult for military planners to predict which innovations will shape future battles. But forecasts are easier to make today.
are omnipresent, and robots are increasingly in use. The wars in Gaza and Ukraine have shown that artificial intelligence is already changing the way states fight. The next major conflict will likely see the wholesale integration of AI into every aspect of military planning and execution. AI systems could, for instance, simulate different tactical and operational approaches thousands of times, drastically shortening the period between preparation and execution. The Chinese military has already created an AI commander that has supreme authority in large-scale virtual war games. Although Beijing prohibits AI systems from making choices in live situations, it could take the lessons it learns from its many virtual simulations and feed them to human decision-makers. And
may eventually give AI models the authority to make choices, as might other states. Soldiers could sip coffee in their offices, monitoring screens far from the battlefield, as an AI system manages all kinds of robotic war machines. Ukraine has already sought to hand over as many dangerous frontline tasks as it can to robots to preserve scarce manpower.
So far, automation has focused on naval power and airpower in the form of sea and air drones. But it will turn to land warfare soon. In the future, the first phase of any war will likely be led by ground robots capable of everything from reconnaissance to direct attacks. Russia has already deployed unmanned ground vehicles that can launch antitank missiles, grenades, and drones. Ukraine has used robots for casualty evacuation and explosive disposal. The next generation of machines will be led by AI systems that use the robots’ sensors to map the battlefield and predict points of attack. Even when human soldiers eventually intervene, they will be led by first-person-view aerial drones that can help identify the enemy (as already happens in Ukraine). They will rely on machines to clear minefields, absorb the enemy’s first volleys, and expose hidden adversaries. If Russia’s war on Ukraine expands to other parts of Europe, a first wave of land-based robots and aerial drones could enable both
and Russia to oversee a wider frontline than humans alone can attack or defend.
The automation of war could prove essential to saving civilian lives. Historically, wars were fought and won in open terrain where few people live. But as global urbanization draws more people into cities and nonstate actors pivot to urban guerrilla tactics, the decisive battlefields of the future will likely be densely populated areas. Such fighting is far more deadly and far more resource-intensive. It will therefore require even more robotic weapons. Militaries will have to deploy small, maneuverable robots (such as robot dogs) on streets and flood the sky with unmanned aerial vehicles to take control of urban positions. They will be guided by algorithms, which can process visual data and make split-second decisions. Israel has helped pioneer such technology, using the first true drone swarm in Gaza in 2021. Those individual drones bypassed Hamas’s defenses and communicated through an AI weapons system to make collective decisions about where they should go.....