Last Thursday, the US State Department outlined a new vision for developing, testing, and verifying military systems--including weapons--that make use of AI. The Political Declaration on Responsible Military Use of Artificial Intelligence and Autonomy represents an attempt by the US to guide the development of military AI at a crucial time for the technology. The document does not legally bind the US military, but the hope is that allied nations will agree to its principles, creating a kind of global standard for building AI systems responsibly. Among other things, the declaration states that military AI needs to be developed according to international laws, that nations should be transparent about the principles underlying their technology, and that high standards are implemented for verifying the performance of AI systems. It also says that humans alone should make decisions around the use of nuclear weapons.

PACAF's Integration Division Deputy Chief Ryan Raber revealed at the Genius Machines event on 3 September that the aim is to better and more rapidly predict a potential enemy's possible intentions. The planned mechanism will be used to improve PACAF's decision-making process and will focus on events taking place in the Pacific region, which means Russia and China could be the potential objects of study, the media outlet Defense One pointed out. PACAF itself didn't specify which countries' actions the planned system will try to predict. The system is expected to forecast a potential adversary's actions by detecting irregularities in its routines based on analysis of past and current actions. The process takes days when done by humans, but by computer with AI it can theoretically handle the result in "just minutes".

A defense official says the drone was approaching a military camp near the Syria-Jordan border. That is where U.S. forces have been training and advising local Syrian Arabs for the fight against Islamic State militants.