THE EFFECTS OF AI ON THE CONDUCT OF WAR
“The computer was born in war and by war.” Computers were developed in 1944 to break Nazi codes. By the 1950s, computers were organizing air defenses for the US. Now artificial intelligence (AI) has developed new tools for making war. Some examples and trends:
Chip-guided drones zero in on targets.
Targets are identified by new developments in object-recognition technology.
The US and China are competing in AI military technology.
Low-cost pilotless aircraft can be launched in such numbers that they swamp defenses.
Autonomous robots will soon be able to identify and destroy targets on land, sea and air.
The speed of warfare will accelerate; there will be little time to stop and think.
Sheer quantity of weapons will be crucial, making the capacity to manufacture them more important; big nations will increase their advantage.
Warfare will become “fiendishly expensive”
It is hard to see how the new AI battlefield could come to be controlled by any international body.
It is difficult to understand why the US would consider war an option after its failures in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq. Perhaps leaders think the new kind of warfare will spare soldiers and only destroy machines. This is a mad dream.
Source: The Economist, 6/22/24