The Military’s Race to Operationalize AI

“I feel as though I was catapulted into a dystopian future in which the battlefield (or ‘kill zone’ as Ukrainians call it) is dominated by drones and sensors, and will increasingly be shaped by AI [Artificial Intelligence], too. It’s where those in command centers digest huge quantities of data to plan operations, allocate drones to target areas, and hunt Russian soldiers and their supplies on myriad computer screens. It’s a type of warfare where the speed of innovation and the ability to scale those innovations are critical assets.”That was Zanny Minton Beddoes, Editor-in-chief of The Economist, writing last week about a recent trip she and several of her colleagues took to Ukraine, where they were the first foreign journalists to spend a day at the command headquarters of the Nemesis Brigade, one that nation’s top drone units.She said it felt like being in “a cross between a Silicon Valley startup and a gamers’ gathering,” where, “in the ‘battle room,’ a cavernous space full of banks of monitors and men with consoles, Pavlo Laktionov, the brigade’s deputy commander, explained to me the ‘e-point’ system: The unit can upload video evidence of successful strikes to win points. The v...