AI machines can think for themselves, but can they explain themselves -- Defense Systems

It's no secret that the U.S. military sees artificial intelligence in its future, for everything from swarming drones to automated cybersecurity practices. And despite its clear potential for military applications, top Pentagon researchers also have acknowledged that AI currently has a lot of limitations--machines can parse greater amounts of information more quickly than humans, but they still can't think like humans. But although machines can't really understand the human mind, humans might be falling behind in understanding the machines they've created. That's part of what's behind an effort by military researchers called Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI), which looks to create tools that allow a human on the receiving end of information or a decision from an AI machine to understand the reasoning that produced it. In essence, the machine needs to explain its thinking.