US to deploy robot combat strategists
April 27, 2016 1:37 pm
US to deploy robot combat strategists
The Pentagon believes technology can give soldiers the
edge with detailed and up to date information
By Geoff Dyer in Washington
The Pentagon believes technology can give soldiers the
edge with detailed and up to date information
The US military’s use of artificial intelligence and
advanced robotics will not include creating Terminator-style robots, the
Pentagon’s second-in-command has said, as concerns increase over the role AI
should play in modern warfare.
Military planners were looking at ways for machines to
help humans make quicker decisions on the battlefield, said Robert Work, deputy
secretary of defence.
“We will use artificial intelligence in the sense that it
makes human decisions better,” Mr Work said. “Human-machine collaboration will
give humans better information upon which to help make decisions.”
The Pentagon’s multibillion-dollar investments in
high-tech weapons have put it at the centre of a global debate about the use of
AI and autonomous robots in warfare, with technologist Elon Musk warning that
AI was “potentially more dangerous than nukes”.
Last year more than 1,000 of the biggest names in science
and technology — including cosmologist Stephen Hawking and Mr Musk — signed an
open letter calling for a global ban on “killer robots”, following concerns
that it could trigger an international arms race.
Mr Work is leading the Pentagon’s push into fields such
as AI and robotics, which the US military hopes will maintain its technological
edge over China and Russia for another generation. “We need to up our strategic
game in an era of great power competition,” he said.
At a national security forum last December Mr Work voiced
US concerns over the speed of developments in artificial intelligence by China
and Russia’s, saying the Russian army was “preparing to fight on a roboticised
battlefield”.
The US’s investments include a range of unmanned
aircraft, ships and submarines that will have an increased level of autonomy.
The Pentagon is also looking at supercomputers that can absorb gigabytes of
data to look for intelligence and to watch potential adversaries.
“The thing that people like Elon Musk are most worried
about is a machine that gets smart enough to rewrite its own code,” he said.
“We are way far away from that.”
General Paul Selva, deputy chairman of the joint chiefs
of staff, said there needed to be a “firebreak” between a machine that can
assess massive quantities of data to help make a targeting decision and one
that decides on the use of force.
“As a human, it makes me very uncomfortable that we might
make a machine that can make a decision about taking lethal action against
anyone without understanding who programmed the consciousness of the machine,”
he said. “That is a debate we need to have about the use of advanced robotics.”
Mr Work said the only likely uses of completely
autonomous machines were in defence, such as missile batteries programmed to
respond to incoming missiles and computer programmes that react to signs of a
cyber attack.
“Our vision of our battle network is where the human will
always be the one who makes the final decision on lethal action, with the
possible exception of some defensive capabilities,” he said.
More powerful computers could allow the Pentagon to catch
small movements of troops or weapons by an adversary. “By looking at all the
social media and what people are reporting [machines could] give us warning of
a little green men problem,” Mr Work said.
One of the dilemmas the US military faces with its new
high-tech weapons is how to establish deterrence with capabilities that are
largely secret and whose impact might be lost if publicised. The Pentagon has
started to lift the veil on a few of its capabilities, talking openly about
conducting cyber war operations against Isis and showing some of its submarine drones.
“We are going to have to make deliberate choices to
withhold the most important capabilities,” said Gen Selva. “But we will have to
make a conscious choice to demonstrate things that clearly signal to our
adversaries that we have a conventional advantage.”
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2016.
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