Developing a national strategy for artificial intelligence, including its ethical aspects, is critical for Israel's future security, a study published last week by the Institute for National Security Studies argued. "Proper management of the field of artificial intelligence in Israel holds great potential for preserving and improving national security," wrote Dr. Liran Antebi, an INSS research fellow, in the Hebrew-language study, which was prepared with assistance from experts in the high-tech industry, the defense establishment, the government and academia. Titled "Artificial intelligence and Israeli national security," the study starts from the assumption that AI will eventually be of decisive importance worldwide in terms of both economics and security, especially if predictions that AI's capabilities will someday exceed human ones prove accurate. "Artificial intelligence will create a new industrial revolution of the greatest scope in history," Antebi wrote. And this will naturally widen the gaps between countries with high technological capabilities and those that are left behind. One example is autonomous weapons systems like robots and drones that are capable of searching for, identifying and attacking targets independently, with almost no human involvement.

AI has a long history. One can argue it even started long before the term was first coined; mostly in stories and later in actual mechanical devices called automata. This chapter only covers events relevant to the periods of AI winters without being too exhaustive in hope to extract knowledge that can be applied today. To aid understanding the phenomenon of AI Winters, the events leading up to them are examined. Many early ideas about thinking machines appeared in the late 1940s to '50s by people like Turing or Von Neumann. Turing tried to frame the questions of "Can machines think?" differently and created the imitation game, now famously called the Turing Test.

Imagine a highly banal situation: a busy junction in a major city, vehicles of every color and description, some moving and others waiting for the lights to change. This situation may be boring to death, but fast, powerful computers can view it differently. Once they are "taught" to pick up and distinguish between the most minute details within the larger picture (machine learning, in the professional jargon), they will be able to identify different car models of various colors and issue warnings of irregular events that are about to happen. For example, a man wearing a heavy overcoat when everyone else is wearing short, light garments, or a person under whose clothes a long-bladed knife is protruding, could generate an alert moments before an attack. It is important to understand that machine learning is only one element of the rapidly developing field known as artificial intelligence.

As American soldiers were being maimed by roadside bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. military was working feverishly on a solution. One problem: It wasted nearly a decade developing one that was available off the shelf in Israel, a staunch U.S. ally. "That's just one anecdote of the kind of parochialism that's been the case at the Pentagon. That mentality, that mindset needs to change," said Ken Weinstein, president and CEO of the Hudson Institute, a Washington think tank on international affairs and technology. More collaboration with foreign partners is needed, but that might be easier said than done, Dr. Weinstein said during a trip to Atlanta to speak at the annual AmCham Germany Business Day event organized by BridgehouseLaw at the Porsche Experience Center.

The Science Council of Japan, the nation's largest and most powerful group of scientists, has launched a panel to discuss whether the group should drop its long-standing vow that scientists will not take part in defense-related research. That policy is an important principle that Japan's scientists have upheld for decades in view of the history of academic institutions cooperating with the military during the nation's past wars and the massive damage the wars brought to the people of Japan and other countries. The group should not tinker with the principle. Doing so would lead to a change in the basic nature of scientific research in this country. The SCJ decided last month to set up the 15-member panel following heated discussions at a plenary meeting.