The authors of this report examine military applications of artificial intelligence (AI); compare development efforts in the United States, China, and Russia; and consider the ethical implications of employing military AI in war and peace.

The authors of this report examine military applications of artificial intelligence (AI); compare development efforts in the United States, China, and Russia; and consider the ethical implications of employing military AI in war and peace.

Progress in artificial intelligence (AI), deep learning, and robotics allow new capabilities that will affect military strategies assertively. The implications of these developments will be felt across the array of military criteria from knowledge, surveillance, and identification to balances of offense and defense, as well as to the nuclear weapons programs themselves. In this suite, five top AI experts and their potential applications within autonomous weapons and monitoring systems are the points of discussions about the moral and realistic challenges of handling the worldwide eruption in military AI research and development. The intention: to maintain fast progress in machine learning from triggering a global arms race in the backdrop of AI poses a new existential threat to humanity. As the US, China, and Russia accelerate its use of artificial intelligence in military contexts, Europe fears falling behind unless the continent's policymakers take measures to combine their initiatives. Future concepts, models, algorithms, data sharing, access to elastic computing power, and sophisticated testing and training are suggested to create a data mobility framework.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is on everybody’s minds these days. Most of the world’s leading companies are making massive investments in it. Governments are scrambling to catch up. Every single one of us who uses Google Search or any of the new digital assistants on our smartphones has witnessed first-hand how quickly these developments now go. Many analysts foresee truly disruptive changes in education, employment, health, knowledge generation, mobility, etc. But what will AI mean for defense and security? In a new study HCSS offers a unique perspective on this question. Most studies to date quickly jump from AI to autonomous (mostly weapon) systems. They anticipate future armed forces that mostly resemble today’s armed forces, engaging in fairly similar types of activities with a still primarily industrial-kinetic capability bundle that would increasingly be AI-augmented. The authors of this study argue that AI may have a far more transformational impact on defense and security whereby new incarnations of ‘armed force’ start doing different things in novel ways. The report sketches a much broader option space within which defense and security organizations (DSOs) may wish to invest in successive generations of AI technologies. It suggests that some of the most promising investment opportunities to start generating the sustainable security effects that our polities, societies and economies expect may lie in in the realms of prevention and resilience. Also in those areas any large-scale application of AI will have to result from a preliminary open-minded (on all sides) public debate on its legal, ethical and privacy implications. The authors submit, however, that such a debate would be more fruitful than the current heated discussions about ‘killer drones’ or robots. Finally, the study suggests that the advent of artificial super-intelligence (i.e. AI that is superior across the board to human intelligence), which many experts now put firmly within the longer-term planning horizons of our DSOs, presents us with unprecedented risks but also opportunities that we have to start to explore. The report contains an overview of the role that ‘intelligence’ - the computational part of the ability to achieve goals in the world - has played in defense and security throughout human history; a primer on AI (what it is, where it comes from and where it stands today - in both civilian and military contexts); a discussion of the broad option space for DSOs it opens up; 12 illustrative use cases across that option space; and a set of recommendations for - especially - small- and medium sized defense and security organizations.

Artificial intelligence (AI) may be the most beneficial technological development of the twenty-first century.Media hype and raised expectations for results, however, have clouded understanding of the true nature of AI—including its limitations and potential. AI at War provides a balanced and practical understanding of applying AI to national security and warfighting professionals as well as a wide array of other readers. Although the themes and findings of the chapters are relevant across the U.S. Department of Defense, to include all Services, the Joint Staff and defense agencies as well as allied and partner ministries of defense, this book is a case study of warfighting functions in the Naval Services—the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps. Sam J. Tangredi and George Galdorisi bring together over thirty experts, ranging from former DOD officials and retired flag officers to scientists and active duty junior officers. These contributors present views on a vast spectrum of subjects pertaining to the implementation of AI in modern warfare, including strategy, policy, doctrine, weapons, and ethical concerns.

An international and interdisciplinary perspective on the adoption and governance of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) in defence and military innovation by major and middle powers. Advancements in AI and ML pose pressing questions related to evolving conceptions of military power, compliance with international humanitarian law, peace promotion, strategic stability, arms control, future operational environments, and technology races. To navigate the breadth of this AI and international security agenda, the contributors to this book include experts on AI, technology governance, and defence innovation to assess military AI strategic perspectives from major and middle AI powers alike. These include views of how the United States, China, Japan, South Korea, the European Union, and Russia see AI/ML as a technology with the potential to reshape military affairs and power structures in the broader international system. This diverse set of views aims to help elucidate key similarities and differences between AI powers in the evolving strategic context. A valuable read for scholars of security studies, public policy, and STS studies with an interest in the impacts of AI and ML technologies.

Winner of the 2019 William E. Colby Award "The book I had been waiting for. I can't recommend it highly enough." —Bill Gates The era of autonomous weapons has arrived. Today around the globe, at least thirty nations have weapons that can search for and destroy enemy targets all on their own. Paul Scharre, a leading expert in next-generation warfare, describes these and other high tech weapons systems—from Israel’s Harpy drone to the American submarine-hunting robot ship Sea Hunter—and examines the legal and ethical issues surrounding their use. “A smart primer to what’s to come in warfare” (Bruce Schneier), Army of None engages military history, global policy, and cutting-edge science to explore the implications of giving weapons the freedom to make life and death decisions. A former soldier himself, Scharre argues that we must embrace technology where it can make war more precise and humane, but when the choice is life or death, there is no replacement for the human heart.