Look around you… what do you see?
Chances are most of what you see can be summed up using one word: Technology.
It’s only logical that industries such as Defense and Intelligence will adopt AI as well.
Countries like China and Russia have adopted a strong policy of becoming leaders of AI in the military. Putin has even said that
“Mechanisms of artificial intelligence provide real-time fast decision-making based on the analysis of huge amounts of information, which gives tremendous advantages in quality and effectiveness,” he said. “If someone can provide a monopoly in the field of artificial intelligence, then the consequences are clear to all of us: he will rule the world” (Daws).
Freaky… I know. Putin further outlined how he plans to include retraining programs, AI initiatives, and work on public-private cooperation in the field (Daws).
Putin has a point, as crazy as that sounds. He is right to point out how important AI is in advancing a country’s influence and military powers.
I was attracted to this topic, after listening to Ronald Arkin’s roboethics talk at my school. It was interesting how when he programmed robots to deceive, people immediately scolded him and alluded to robots rising up against their human owners. They completely ignored other implications of robots being able to mimic the human-like quality of deception, such as how useful that would be in the military.
Another reason I picked this topic is because, I always liked learning about the military and I always wanted to learn more about AI, so it made sense to me to combine these two topics.
For obvious reasons, this multimedia narrative project wont go as in depth as others will, because a) I don’t have a degree in AI so I cant understand half of the details and b) I don’t have government clearance so most of the projects will simply be summaries from popular new sources or government documents.
In this blog, I’ll first tackle the definition of AI, then I’ll briefly mention the AI Strategy and cover an example, and lastly I’ll leave the readers with questions on the ethics of AI in the military.
First things first, what is AI?
AI stands for Artificial Intelligence. Depending on who you ask, AI can be a lot of different things. In a 2018 Forbes article by Bernard Marr, he mentions at least 6 different definitions of AI.
The very first use of the term “Artificial Intelligence” was by John McCarthy in 1956. He gathered some intelligent researchers in sub-fields of computer science and created a Summer workshop to kickstart the field of AI (Marr). McCarthy and the other researchers came up with the definition of Artificial Intelligence as, “The study is to proceed on the basis of the conjecture that every aspect of learning or any other feature of intelligence can in principle be so precisely described that a machine can be made to simulate it” (Marr).
But as the AI field grew, so did the definition. Marr continued to highlight the diversity of the definition by pointing out, “The English Oxford Living Dictionary gives this definition: “The theory and development of computer systems able to perform tasks normally requiring human intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making, and translation between languages” (Marr).
The English Oxford Living Dictionary definition is a pretty common definition of AI, and the definition I’ll be using in this blog.
The idea of automatons or robots carrying out human actions and behaviors is strange, because it sparks the questions are they mimicking humans or can they actually behave human-like? Regardless of your personal opinions on that subject, research is being made to answer that key question.
Now, that AI has been defined, let’s take a brief look at President’s Trump Artificial Intelligence Strategy and the DOD’s strategy.
President Trump made an Executive Order on February 11, 2019 to strengthen our position in the world of AI research and AI abilities (“Artificial Intelligence for the American People”). The overview is pretty lengthy, but it basically says that America is going to try to catch up to the other nations and try to improve our Artificial Intelligence capabilities through encouraging more research funding and more training initiatives and education programs (“Artificial Intelligence for the American People”). The DOD had a similar plan, but focused on the military. In their plan they talked about how they wanted to, “attract and cultivate” AI talent and work across different agencies (“DOD Unveils Its Artificial Intelligence Strategy”). An example of a DOD AI-related initiative is Project Maven which hopes to make analyzing a lot of data easy (“DOD Unveils Its Artificial Intelligence Strategy”).
The idea of AI in the military is a complicated one. On one hand, some people like the idea that we won’t be putting people in danger by deploying more troops when we can automate war. But on the other hand, people are terrified giving AI that much power to analyze data and potentially kill. Most of the high power killings of terrorist leaders, like Abu Bakr were done because of AI analyzing data and providing human analysts with data on the terrorists locations. But many people wonder if they have drones that can kill, will they create actual robots that can handle guns and operate tanks?
The ethics on AI in the military usually surround on the idea of robots having the potential to kill or play a role in killing. If killing is already an ethical hotbed for real human soldiers, imagine adding AI to the equation.
Another interesting debate that’s happening surrounding the ethics of AI in the military, is if AI cannot feel human emotions and attachment, then are we just further dehumanizing war (“Artificial Intelligence”)? By dehumanizing war even further, it may take away the ethical oversight needed to justify a “just” war versus an unjust war.
I talked with my Computer Science Professor about his opinions on AI and the military. Professor Levy had a couple of really insightful comments…
All these attempts to make up for years of neglecting our position in AI, can be dizzying. Is it worth it some may ask? Is it more ethical to have AI in the military? And can the USA ever lead AI or will we be following the leader?
I don’t have the answers nor do many experts… but fingers crossed we can develop AI that can compete against nations like China or Russia.
Works Cited
“Artificial Intelligence for the American People.” The White House, The United States Government, 11 Feb. 2019, www.whitehouse.gov/ai/executive-order-ai/.
“Artificial Intelligence.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 11 Dec. 2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence.
Daws, Ryan. “Putin Outlines Russia’s National AI Strategy Priorities.” AI News, TechForge Media, 31 May 2019, artificialintelligence-news.com/2019/05/31/putin-russia-national-ai-strategy-priorities/.
Marr, Bernard. “The Key Definitions Of Artificial Intelligence (AI) That Explain Its Importance.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 14 Feb. 2018, www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2018/02/14/the-key-definitions-of-artificial-intelligence-ai-that-explain-its-importance/#624f69b04f5d.
Pellerin, Cheryl. “Project Maven Industry Day Pursues Artificial Intelligence for DoD Cha.” U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE, 27 Oct. 2017, www.defense.gov/Explore/News/Article/Article/1356172/project-maven-industry-day-pursues-artificial-intelligence-for-dod-challenges/.
