The New Addition to the US Arsenal: Artificial Intelligence

It may sound like something out of a science-fiction flick, but the US Air Force recently announced that it has now embedded artificial intelligence (AI) into its targeting operations – and that's not a drill. According to Frank Kendall, Secretary of the Air Force, AI algorithms were deployed into a live operational kill chain. Kendall, however, did not disclose whether this was done by a human pilot or a remote-controlled drone. Likewise, nothing was mentioned regarding the possible loss of human life. It's a development that is raising some serious questions regarding the ethical merits and moral consequences of using technology in warfare. A kill chain is, essentially, the structure of an attack.