Military Use of AI

What are the advantages, disadvantages, and risks of using AI? What are potential additional military applications for AI?

The U.S. government is spending millions on developing machines that understand moral consequence.

A new report issued by Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs explores the implications of A.I. on national security.

Deputy Defense secretary Robert Work warned 'The commercial world has already made this leap' as he outlined the hopes for AI on the battlefield.

This is an important discussion with many complexities, not least of which is the conflation of two potentially very different technologies: artificial intelligence and autonomous weapons. The terms themselves can be ambiguous—what, for example, does autonomous mean with reference to robotic systems?

In the constant race to maintain the military advantage, defense research is often at the forefront of cutting-edge research across a wide variety of fields. This can have longstanding impacts even outside of the armed forces. From radar systems to microwaves, many inventions had their roots in military applications.

The abilities of cutting-edge AIs are being demonstrated in activities like poker and Go, but what’s coming next is no game.

The United States military has a long tradition of embracing new technologies. The Wright brothers built airplanes for the U.S. Army. The U.S. Navy commissioned the first motorized submarine. One of the most influential scientific endeavors in history, the Manhattan Project, was a military operation. Military adoption of new technology continues to this day.

The impact of the rapid expansion of the commercial market on autonomous systems development cannot be overstated.

Today, the military primarily uses AI to process large amounts of information, including videos, signals and intelligence that must be deciphered and analyzed quickly. As developments in AI continue, these tasks may seem almost menial.

The debate over using artificial intelligence to control lethal weapons in warfare is more complex than it seems.

After decades of research and disappointing results, U.S. military experts start to see new directions for artificial intelligence in data processing, pattern recognition, and decision aids. Artificial intelligence (AI) is getting down to business. The field is moving away from the grandiose attempts of the past that attempted to reproduce the spectrum of human intelligence in machine form. Now the focus is on specific applications employing AI principles to tackle relatively mundane tasks.

Human-robot strike teams, autonomous land mines, and covert swarms of minuscule robotic spies: the US Department of Defense's idea of the future of war seems like a sci-fi movie.

Artificial intelligence could make the US military more powerful—and also more vulnerable.

The future of the U.S. military may be focused on artificial intelligence (A.I.), an effort that could improve cybersecurity, precision weaponry and other military functions.

Military robots are autonomous robots or remote-controlled mobile robots designed for military applications, from transport to search and rescue and attack.