It is worrisome to foresee automated battlefield decision-making processes without human interventions. Such systems, operated by robots, will automatically collect data about the enemy deployment, strengths, weaknesses, and war plans, feed it in super computers for instructions, and launch attacks to neutralize or destroy the enemy’s combat capability. Robot generals rather than humans will make fateful decisions. With the accelerated advancement in Artificial Intelligence (AI), fire instructions will be automatically sent to the fighters without human involvement. Will we be at the mercy of robot generals who may unleash nuclear weapons without human authorization?
It is said that automated psychological systems are in place, which can change human behaviour to accept the information directed at them. From time immemorial, psychological warfare has been used by adversaries as a tool of war and for political propaganda. The latter has a long history, but the use of AI will significantly enhance the effectiveness of political domination, which can turn the tides in favour of the adversary taking the initiative.
Lethal autonomous weapon systems that will locate, select, and eliminate targets without human intervention are being developed by some countries. In his book titled: Human Compatible Artificial Intelligence and the Problem of Control, Stuart Russel refers to the Israeli Harop, a loitering munition with a 10 feet wingspan and a 50-pound warhead which searches for up to six hours in a given geographical region for any target that meets a given criteria and then destroys it. However, such weapons are still under human control, but they can quickly be converted into autonomous weapons. According to published reports, the United States, some years back, developed drones that operate in packs that are a collective organism sharing one distributed brain for decision-making and adapting collectively. Their deployment consisting of 103 microdrones was successfully demonstrated in 2016. In the race of developing autonomous weapons, the USA, Russia, China, and to some extent UK and Israel are in competition to develop suitable weapons of mass destruction. Such weapons could be programmed to destroy only the selected targets that might threaten the attacking forces and leave the built-up areas intact. On the contrary, nuclear weapons destroyed all and sundry.
Although AI has resulted in the development of robots and in the advancement of military technologies, the good news is that the creation of fully autonomous robot generals has not yet been seriously undertaken because of ethical and strategic concerns. One of the reasons is that diplomatic discussions have been going on in Geneva for a treaty that would ban autonomous weapon systems.
Leaving aside the destructive autonomous weapons, AI will be used to facilitate military operations. To launch any operation against the enemy, commanders undertake detailed appreciation of the prevailing situation, which includes the area in which operations are to be launched, the enemy strength and capabilities, enemy’s likely actions to counter the offensive, and own capabilities. AI will facilitate situational analysis, awareness, patterns, enemy actions, and trends. Such detailed availability of intelligence will enable the attacker to suitably come up with the appropriate plan of action to overpower the enemy. Such a course of action will also be available to the opposing force to thwart the attacker’s plans.
Will AI result in reduction of numerical strengths of military forces and maintain a reasonably small but effective defense forces? The way AI is emerging, this may be possible because AI would automate surveillance, reconnaissance, and logistics. Moreover, possession of autonomous weapons will make all the difference. The technology will help commanders to make timely and sound decisions because it would make it possible to gather relevant information and simultaneously analyze it and launch information warfare against the enemy to lower its morale and the will to fight. AI seems to be an important element of Sun Tzu’s art of war which is: “to fight and conquer in all our battles is not the supreme excellence. Supreme excellence consists of breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting---the greatest victory is that which requires no battle”.
A significant amount of work has gone into as to how AI assisted cyber warfare will rob the enemy of his communication infrastructure, power grids, and management systems. An adversary seizing the initiative will neutralize the command-and-control system of the target country, which will result in chaos and confusion in victim’s defense forces and the population. Fortunately, genuine efforts have been made to reduce the possibilities of such scenarios developing in future conflicts. However, as they say, everything is fair in love and war and powerful countries may disregard any treaty if that would help achieve their objectives.
The subject is extremely important for Pakistan and its defense forces because of a hostile neighbour in the East and terrorist organizations infiltrating from the West. Because of the latter development, Pakistan continues to suffer human and material losses, especially by its military. A natural question that comes to mind is that what Pakistan Military has done and is doing to adopt AI to fight the menace and be prepared to thwart future dangers. In the absence of any publication on the subject by the Pakistan Military, it is difficult to comment on its current position on the use of AI or any work it is doing on the development of autonomous weapon systems. Countries like the USA, Russia, China, and to some extent the UK, and Israel have been adopting AI for military use. Surely, Pakistan Military recognizes the potential benefits of AI in various aspects of defense such as surveillance, reconnaissance, autonomous weapons, planning, and decision-making.
It is high time for the Pakistan Military to enter into collaboration with the universities and the industry for research and development in this technology for military applications. This Technology Triangle will enable the military to keep pace with the emerging AI technologies and cutting-edge solutions to military needs.
India’s successful mission of landing on the moon and now its solar mission aimed at studying the outer layers of the sun should be warning signs for us. These developments may be an indicator of its confidential working in autonomous weaponization and technical growth. These days, some breakthroughs by India may surprise us. I am sure Pakistan’s military strategists are well-cognizant of impending dangers to the country’s security.
We must be vigilant of developments around us in this rapidly emerging technology. Let not the current state of our weak economy, which is a temporary phenomenon, affect our determination to keep pace with the evolving AI technologies to ensure that we acquire strong potential to deal with any dangers to our security. Strong economy and political stability are a must to harness AI for our defense purposes. Collaboration with the like-minded Muslim counties, rich in resources, can facilitate research and development in AI technologies to enhance our economic and military capabilities.
(The writer is the Senior Advisor Emeritus at the Sustainable Development Policy Institute, Islamabad. The views expressed in this article are his own, these do not necessarily reflect SDPI’s thinking on the subject).
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