Human-machine teams driven by AI are about to reshape warfare. Some technology experts think that the old defense sector, which produces expensive weapons sometimes slowly but surely, is under threat from inventive commercial software developers now competing in the arms market.
It is still too early to predict if large, human-operated weapons like submarines or surveillance helicopters will go extinct, just as battleships did when air power first became dominant. However, airborne, ground, and undersea robots working with humans are ready to play a significant part in the battle.
The conflict in Ukraine is already producing signs of this transformation. Even crude human and machine teams working there without much autonomy fueled by artificial intelligence are changing the battlefield. Military experts who follow the war claim that inexpensive, remotely operated drones have significantly increased the lethality of artillery, rockets, and missiles in Ukraine.
Speaking on August 28 in Washington, D.C., at a symposium on military technology, U.S. deputy secretary of defense Kathleen Hicks said that conventional military weapons “remain essential.” However, she pointed out that the situation in Ukraine had shown how cutting-edge technology created by for-profit and unconventional businesses might be “decisive in defending against modern military aggression.”
In a special investigation released today, Reuters examines how automation fueled by artificial intelligence is positioned to change military power, conflict, and weaponry.
According to a May Special Competitive Studies Project assessment, a non-partisan U.S. council of experts, Russian and Ukrainian forces are merging conventional weapons with AI, satellite imagery, communications, and smart and loitering bombs. According to the article, soldiers have been “forced to go underground or huddle in cellars to survive,” leaving the battlefield as a patchwork of deep trenches and bunkers.
According to some military planners, drones are taking on more and more of the responsibilities formerly played by attack and transport helicopters in this fight since they have grown so susceptible.
In many of their operations, crewed surveillance helicopters have already been replaced by unmanned aircraft systems, according to Mick Ryan, a retired Australian army major general who often comments on the war. Drones are beginning to take the position of ground-based artillery observers. As a result, some replacement is already becoming apparent.
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