By Nicholas West

Unlike my previous post that took a lighthearted look at the newest Robo-Dog on the market, which has a Doberman head filled with artificial intelligence, the U.S. Army’s newest plans for artificial intelligence aren’t even close to a laughing matter.

The U.S. military has long been obsessed with integrating artificial intelligence into weapons of war, and it appears that they are getting closer to the full-scale rollout of these systems.

A couple of weeks ago I reported about a new type of facial recognition goggle that would help soldiers identify targets from a distance by giving the ability “to see through the eyes” of any weapons system. The U.S. Army stated that the future soldier could then shoot around corners with confidence that their target was properly sighted, as well as also giving the capability to link up with drones.

As if that wasn’t a potential disaster of its own, today the U.S. Army has stated that ideally there wouldn’t be a soldier in the mix at all, instead leaving the identification and execution of a target entirely up to a missile equipped with artificial intelligence.

The Cannon-Delivered Area Effects Munition (C-DAEM) system will use GPS to identify enemy tanks and armoured shells, which will be scanned in advance from the skies.

According to sources, the Pentagon will invest vast sums into the AI-guided munitions, which could be ready by 2021.
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The weapons will have a range of up to 60 kilometres…and will be able to search an area of more than 28 square kilometres for their targets,’ New Scientist reports. — Source: Daily Mail

As I continue to repeat ad nauseum, some of the world’s leading experts are raising their levels of caution about both the reliability of identification as well as any predictive analytics associated with artificial intelligence. Nevertheless, the militaries of the world are engaged in an A.I. arms race that shows no signs of slowing down.

The U.S. Army has stated many times that these systems are not designed to be fully autonomous initiation to execution, but rather will use A.I. to pursue targets without any possibility of interruption.

[A] spokesperson for the U.S. Army disputes that this will be a missile that selects its own target. In a statement, they said: “This is not an autonomous weapon, nor is it intended to be. We seek an advanced capability for a round — once fired — to continue pursuing a target despite the types of interference that might cause it to pursue something else. This would improve our capabilities to avoid collateral damage.” In other words, this would be akin to a heat-seeking missile on steroids. — Source: Digital Trends