How AI Could Change The Art Of War
Time-honored principles of command get weird when you add the fundamentally alien thinking of an artificial intelligence.
ATLAS: Killer Robot? No. Virtual Crewman? Yes.
Alarming headlines to the contrary, the US Army isn't building robotic "killing machines." What they really want artificial intelligence to do in combat is much more interesting.
presented by
Multi-channel data link reshapes Navy’s communications capabilities
The Network Tactical Common Data Link system enables secure comms and ISR for carrier strike groups and their air and naval assets.
Army Wants Revolutionary Scout Aircraft For $30 Million, Same As Apache E
The Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA) must have enough artificial intelligence to fly unmanned at least part of the time, a secure network to control drones, and combination of speed and range that's impossible for traditional helicopters.
Artificial Stupidity: Fumbling The Handoff From AI To Human Control
Science fiction taught us to fear smart machines we can’t control. But reality should teach us to fear smart machines that need us to take control when we’re not ready. From Patriot missiles to Tesla cars to Airbus jets, automated systems have killed human beings, not out of malice, but because the humans operating them […]
Artificial Stupidity: When Artificial Intelligence + Human = Disaster
APPLIED PHYSICS LABORATORY: Futurists worry about artificial intelligence becoming too intelligent for humanity’s good. Here and now, however, artificial intelligence can be dangerously dumb. When complacent humans become over-reliant on dumb AI, people can die. The lethal track record goes from the Tesla Autopilot crash last year, to the Air France 447 disaster that killed 228 […]
Lockheed Exoskeleton Gives Troops A Leg Up, Literally
It is not Iron Man. It isn’t even Iron Fist. Lockheed Martin’s newest exoskeleton is more like Iron Leg. But for a soldier humping his weapons, ammo and body armor up a mountain in Afghanistan or a high-rise building in a future urban battle, a device to take the load off would be welcome. And, unlike […]
How technology, strategy and industry are shaping the next fleet
Discover how unmanned systems and emerging technologies are shaping the future of U.S. naval power in Breaking Defense’s new eBook.
MDC2: Air Force Works On Huge Command, Control System; Allies Key
ORLANDO: Want to defeat an enemy? Get inside his decision cycle. Hammer away at his forces, confuse his command, steal his intelligence. Sun Tzu said most of it ages ago, but it remains true today. The key to such success is, first, understanding what you and the enemy are doing and, second, communicating that understanding to […]
Best Of 2016: Rise Of The Robots
How does war change when your weapons can think? Do you trust a computer to decide when and whom to kill? Questions once asked only in science fiction are now becoming matters for policymakers. All four armed services are experimenting with artificial intelligence in every domain: land, sea, air, outer space, cyberspace, and the all-pervasive […]
DSD Work Embraces DARPA’s Robot Boat, Sea Hunter
This afternoon, Deputy Defense Secretary and robotics booster Bob Work will christen the largest unmanned surface vessel in history. At 130 feet long and not quite 140 tons displacement, DARPA’s Sea Hunter dwarfs previous robotic boats, giving it the ruggedness and fuel capacity, about 70 days’ worth, to cross oceans on its own power without a manned mothership. But […]
Faster Than Thought: DARPA, Artificial Intelligence, & The Third Offset Strategy
ARLINGTON: The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is developing artificial intelligence that can help humans understand the floods of data they unleashed 50 years ago with the Internet and make better decisions, even in the heat of battle. Such “human-machine collaboration” — informally known as the centaur model — is the high-tech holy grail […]
presented by
Why enterprise IT modernization matters now – and how to “delight by design”
Do more with less: streamline workflows, reduce duplication, invest upfront to save long-term.
Robot Wars: Centaurs, Skynet, & Swarms
WASHINGTON: I haven’t seen the new Star Wars movie yet — no spoilers in the comments section, please — but its vision of high-tech warfare is already looking quaint. Always at heart a fairy tale in space, the series puts humans in the cockpit and on the front lines, with droids as adorable sidekicks. Meanwhile, […]
Will US Pursue ‘Enhanced Human Ops?’ DepSecDef Wonders
WASHINGTON: The Defense Department’s Third Offset Strategy is designed to create new advantages over adversaries now that Russia and China are developing stealth fighters, cyber weapons, and precision missile arsenals of their own. With studies well underway and up to $15 billion budgeted for experimentation in 2017, the emerging answer is a cluster of technologies related to […]
Bridging The ‘Valley Of Death’ For Navy Drones
PENTAGON: The Navy’s new offices for unmanned systems — that’s drones or robots to you and me — are a long-overdue reform, two top experts tell us. But, as emphasized by both our outside sources and the new Navy officials themselves, it’s equally important to understand the initiative’s limits. This is not an overhaul of the […]
Centaur Army: Bob Work, Robotics, & The Third Offset Strategy
[UPDATED with TRADOC & additional Work comment] We’ve talked a lot in these pages about drones and robots, networks and swarms. But there’s new way of looking at these weapons that Bob Work made clear is at the heart of the Defense Department’s high-tech “Third Offset Strategy.” It’s an approach that relies not just on technology […]