Pentagon publishes AI guidelines

As the specter of killer warrior robots looms large, the Pentagon has published a set of ethical guidelines for its use of artificial intelligence. It's a document designed to guide the use of AI in both combat and non-combat military scenarios. The document comes from the Defense Innovation Board, a group of 16 heavy hitters chaired by former Alphabet executive chair Eric Schmidt and counting Hayden Planetarium director Neil deGrasse Tyson and LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman among its members. Called AI Principles: Recommendations on the Ethical Use of Artificial Intelligence by the Department of Defense, the missive is an attempt to lay out ground rules for the use of AI early on, giving the military a framework on which to build its AI systems. Frameworks like these are important for the safe rollout of new technologies, it points out, citing civil engineering and nuclear-powered vessels as examples. Now is the time, at this early stage of the resurgence of interest in AI, to hold serious discussions about norms of AI development and use in a military context – long before there has been an incident.