Weapons Controlled by Artificial Intelligence When we talk about increasing the lethality of weapons, we don’t hear much about artificial intelligence, but it is becoming a big part of this formula. Recently, a rumor came out which has a very good chance of being true. It stated the United States has been able to infuse artificial intelligence into their ICBMs. It went on to state we have improved them to the point it is almost impossible to shoot one down. Combining this with our new hypersonic missiles, makes this a deadly duo. We know Artificial Intelligence or AI is being developed for weapons use all over the world, so we will always have to try and stay one step ahead of other nations. In my opinion AI assisted weapons have to be designed in such a way as not to be responsible for deciding who lives and dies. This should be strictly a human decision. Humans are not perfect, but I can’t help but feel it might be much easier for a machine to decide to kill someone who shouldn’t be a target. If the weapons are mass destruction weapons, such as nukes, they have to be set up to be able to cancel no matter the distance from the launch site. We don’t want to find out at the last second there is a glitch in the AI software which is preventing us from shutting the weapon down. Are the days of human armies numbered? We could be seeing the beginnings of using more robotic devices and less soldiers in some situations such as clearing out a building with terrorists in it. Sending in robots is already happening. They may not look like us and more like small tractors right now, but they are deadly. We are in a situation much as when the first tanks were used. They were slow and awkward, but terrorized the Germans until they figured out how to fight them and make their own. As a matter of fact, tanks are one of the areas where AIs are making inroads. One of the things the military wants is more robot vehicles. Think about this, a force of robot tanks powered by AI could be quite formidable, especially if one person could control them all and override the AI when needed. I have no way of knowing what weapons we are sending to the Ukraine are controlled by AI, but I do know they have allowed the Ukrainians to pit remote weapons against human Russian troops and the result is an incredible number of Russian troops dead. When these weapons are used it allows an attack without risking a single Ukrainian soldier to close combat. As is obvious, it is better for a military force to be able to attack from a distance than up close. Some of the Ukrainian attacks have used the types of weapons which can be launched from a safe distance away and can track the target using AI or stay in the air for a while looking for a target to attack. The Pentagon was known to have a program which used AI to increase the lethality of their drone strikes. This had caused some workers who were involved with companies helping to perfect the AI to protest. Opponents of this type of research complain about the ethics of it, or even better the lack thereof. I think it all depends on how exactly the AI is being used. As I said if it decides who lives and dies, I think that is wrong. On the other hand, if it can limit the damage and prevent the innocent from being harmed, I am for that as I am for the use of AI when it saves the lives of our military. We are headed toward a world where robot ships will roam the oceans and one or two are already doing this. Robot planes will fly the skies and robot armies will be fielded. I have a worry about this. My worry is once the human factor is removed from war, if it ever is, will some countries feel it is okay to shoot down planes, sink ships or attack an army where if human lives were involved, they would think twice before doing that? There is also another problem. Some countries such as Russia have already demonstrated they have the ability to jam all electronics on our ships by flying planes over them which contain a special device for jamming all electronic signals. What would happen if they could do this to all our AI weapons or worse yet, reprogram them to attack us? We have to take all this into consideration. After all, we know computer software and hardware can be hacked and what is AI other than a form of computer software and sometimes computer hardware. Can you imagine an entire robot army being turned against us? For years the ethics of AI has been debated. It seems like the answer is when it is programmed, it should take into consideration innocent lives and if that type of situation arises, then turn over the attack to a human who would then decide to attack or not. Under no circumstances should the machine make that decision. I know some countries would not worry about this. Look at all the innocent people being killed in the Ukraine by the Russian government. They don’t seem to care and probably would have no problem with a robot killing innocents, but we should be above that. As I said, one of the advantages of AI is one person can control many devices remotely. The U.S. Air Force is building planes which will allow one pilot to control many drones at once and eventually control many pilotless planes. Apparently, there will be a lot less pilots in the future. Some of the new planes can be flown by a pilot or remotely. We saw the first use of a weaponized drone when an MQ-1 Predator drone fired a Hellfire missile at a target. It was a teaser for us about what was coming in the future, a future of AI controlled vehicles. Just picture a drone pilot now being able to control many of these drones at once. There was a delegate from the United States that put it very well. He was at the 1898 weapons convention and said, “the objection that a warlike device is barbarous has always been made against new weapons, which have nevertheless eventually been adopted.” This is so true, especially for nuclear weapons and now AI controlled ones. It seems no matter how terrible the weapons invented are, the ones coming in the future are worse.
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