There are a lot of people who are convinced that unmanned aircraft, ships, and subsurface craft are the future of warfare. Not just surveillance and reconnaissance, but full spectrum combat.
At least for the Western democracies, my initial push-back has always been that regardless of how good your AI gets the legal/ROE issues will get in the way if you cut away the man-in-the-loop such that we have now in the TLAM to Reaper spectrum of autonomy.
Other parts of the world? Not everyone has the niceties that we are used to when it comes to moral or safety considerations.
You cannot classify math, and what is cutting edge for one generation is old and primitive for another. The North Koreans building nuclear weapons is a case in point.
There is, of course, the usual reply from the AI advocated that AI will be the next thing in military etc etc etc.
What if we are scope-locked in our AI discussion? What if we simply do not get the big picture of what is going on?
Author Sam Harris is having me rethink all of my previous assumptions about the direction we are going with and thinking about AI.
The question we should be asking isn’t as much, “if it will meet the promise,” as “should we even let it get close.”
“We.” Unfortunately, there is no international “we” with the force to keep a genie in a bottle, is there?
You need to watch the full video from his TED Talk below, but in it he outlines three assumptions you need to hoist onboard in order to fully understand what the real challenge of AI is.
1. Intelligence is the product of information processing. General Consciousness will eventually be built in to our intelligent machines.
2. We will continue to improve our intelligent machines.
3. We are not near the peak of intelligence.
Agree with the above? Well, you may not want your AI air superiority fighter anytime soon
Watch.
