Artificial intelligence poses questions for nature of war: Mattis - news - att.net

Artificial intelligence and its impact on weapons of the future has made US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis doubt his own theories on warfare. A question on the subject prompted the retired Marine general to give an impromptu seminar on his theory of war Saturday to reporters returning with him from a week-long tour of Europe. Recalling his own writings, he differentiated between the essential nature of war, which is unchanging because it is human, and war's character, which is changing. "The fundamental nature of war is almost like H2O," he said. An old dead German called it a Chameleon because it changes to adapt to its time, to the technology, to the terrain," he said, referring to the 19th century military strategist Carl von Clausewitz. Mattis explained that today drones are piloted remotely, but tomorrow weapons may be able to learn on their own, adapt and fire themselves. "The most misnamed weapon in our system is the unmanned aerial vehicle.