Military AI: In Deep Learning We Trust?

Perhaps no other technology animates the imagination of defense policymakers and analysts as much as artificial intelligence (AI), or more precisely, a subfield of AI called machine learning. The Pentagon is no exception, with the Trump administration having pushed an AI agenda for the military, including through the creation of a Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC) in 2018. But while military gains from AI technologies are substantial, the way policymakers involved in military AI hard sell its potential often gives observers pause. Speaking virtually at a think tank event on November 6, JAIC's director Lieutenant General Michael Groen compared the military risks the United States faces today to 1914, when World War I broke out, marking the beginning of industrialized warfare. BreakingDefense quotes Groen as saying that "the Information Age equivalent of… lancers riding into machine guns" is using traditional command and control (C2) systems against an adversary equipped with AI. Groen, a Marine Corps intelligence officer whose tours of duty included Iraq and who became JAIC head on October 1, also pointed out the inefficiency of current processes integrating intelligence to kinetic action, in terms of a persistent lag between collation and analysis and engagement even in asymmetric conflicts.