The United States Department of Defense announced this Saturday that they are considering the possibility of using artificial intelligence to develop new defense and attack systems.
Michael Horowitz, the Pentagon’s chief of Emerging Capabilities Policy, introduced the initiative, which seeks to give weapon systems autonomy.
According to Horowitz from 2012, the year of publication of the last guide on Artificial Intelligence, by 2023, there were many findings in the field.
“The directive does not prohibit the development of any particular weapon system: it sets the requirements for autonomous and semi-autonomous weapon systems,” Horowitz said.
The production of weapons with artificial intelligence also seeks to improve and continue to obtain increasingly better alternatives.
Human judgment is maintained when using weapons with artificial intelligence:
One of the most important things is “the dramatic and expanded vision of the role of Artificial Intelligence in future military operations,” added the executive.
One thing, however, Pentagon insiders are clear: Commanders and operators must exercise proper humane judgment about the use of force. Information gathering and execution is left to arms, but the order comes from a person.
“The board does not change the approval requirements (…) You still have high-level reviewers, who are finally making the call on these systems. What the autonomous weapons task force does is facilitate the aggregation of the information that senior leaders would need to be able to make decisions effectively,” he stated.