Artificial intelligence in the service of war.

Original news article (in spanish): https://mpr21.info/la-inteligencia-articial-al-servicio-de-la-guerra/

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the science fiction work R.U.R. (Rossum Universal Robots) by Czech writer Karel Capek, which anticipated the word “robot” and subsequent books on the subject, as well as “Terminator”-type movies.

The obsession is always the same: in the beginning robots were designed to be helpers of humans, but after a while they rebelled and destroyed us, with the exception of those who are needed to make more robots.

Robots started out modest. They had only a limited set of programmable functions that required maintenance, like any other mechanical contraption. But then they catch up with, and even surpass, humans, and can even do without us.

Mechanics and mechanical fantasies have always been part of militarism, especially in the United States. Numerous Pentagon laboratories, with the help of defense subcontractors, are completing advanced robot prototypes for the imperialist wars of the future.

The Ghost Fleet unmanned vessel Overlord recently successfully sailed 4,700 nautical miles and participated in the Dawn Blitz exercise, where it operated autonomously for most of the operation.

The Pentagon has detailed military plans to attack China with autonomous weapons systems and underwater suicide drones. Underwater and surface combat robots are already in the pipeline.

Other countries are imitating the United States, which in turn must make plans to counter such autonomous weaponry. Last month the Pentagon published a strategy to combat small unmanned aircraft systems.

Artificial intelligence is at the heart of modern warfare planning. According to Gen. Michael Groen, director of the Pentagon’s Artificial Intelligence Center, “We may soon find ourselves in a battlespace defined by data-driven decision making, integrated action and tempo. If we make the necessary efforts to apply artificial intelligence today, we will find ourselves operating with unprecedented efficiency and effectiveness in the future.”

The Artificial Intelligence Center was established in 2018 and today is one of the leading military institutions developing “smart” programs for future weapons, communication and command systems.

Artificial intelligence is now at the core of U.S. military research. It is a new kind of arms race. The development of artificial intelligence will lead to fierce competition, as it differs from many technologies of the past in its natural tendency to monopoly, which will exacerbate international military imbalances.

To boost artificial intelligence, it must be turned into a business. By 2030 it could generate nearly $16 trillion in GDP growth, 70 percent of which would be generated in the United States and China.