The Future of Warfare

Autonomous military machines are serving on active duty around the world, and the US is calling on public and private sector AI leaders to help keep the nation ahead of the field.

Last year, a research team from RAND conducted a survey that presented various scenarios on how the US military might use artificial intelligence. The team asked respondents to share their comfort level in using AI for these scenarios, which varied in terms of factors, such as the distance from the battlefield, the level of destructiveness, and the degree of human oversight over the AI algorithm.

The survey's results showed that most AI experts in the US do not oppose the fundamental mission of the US Department of Defense to use AI for various military applications.

“A global technology revolution is now underway,” says Antony Blinken, US Secretary of State, who also served as deputy assistant to then-President Barack Obama and national security advisor to Vice President Joe Biden from 2009 to 2013. Blinken returned to government as a foreign policy advisor for Biden's 2020 presidential campaign, having founded the consulting firm WestExec Advisors with fellow former Obama administration officials Michèle Flournoy, Sergio Aguirre, and Nitin Chadda in 2017.

“The world’s leading powers are racing to develop and deploy new technologies, like artificial intelligence and quantum computing, that could shape everything about our lives,” says Blinken. “From where we get energy to how we do our jobs, to how wars are fought. We want America to maintain our scientific and technological edge because it’s critical to us thriving in the 21st-century economy.”

The US federal government was estimated to have more than US$6bn in AI-related research-and-development projects in 2021