Artificial Intelligence is the emerging technology of the future, which is impacting human society in all fields. Its development is progressing rapidly, and it is apt to briefly peep into its role in future warfare. The author gives us a fairly good overview and outlines how warfare is changing into newer domains.
- New technologies have always resulted in tectonic shifts in all walks of life including in the nature of warfare leading to a revolution in military affairs (RMA). Added domains of Cyber and Space have already impacted the hitherto traditional battle spaces on land, sea and air. The emerging field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is another technology on the threshold of revolutionizing and disrupting present doctrines in warfighting. The combination of AI and biotechnology is likely to provide novel tools which in turn would dictate a need to plan our capability development as well as develop fresh concepts at the tactical and strategic levels.
- What is AI? Computer programs capable of executing decisions in a faster, more intelligent manner than a human, based on a defined set of parameters and a clear objective. The initial and earlier work in AI involved deductive, computational logic. The real World is guided by rules which are first interpreted and tabulated by human intelligence. The primary role of AI is to follow these encoded rules to reproduce outcomes already mapped out by humans, AI being a replica of human intelligence. The exponential increase in availability of data, computing power and breakthroughs in computing models and algorithms such as neural networks have opened new avenues. The current AI is rooted in Statistical Correlation. Today’s AI is capable of generating high performance predictive models which do not depend on the underlying principles that govern a problem. Hence at times, the logic to reach a solution is not known but the solution is optimal.
- Technologies have made a quantum jump, wherein a handheld mobile phone carries a computer, faster and bigger than many of the military grade computers at the turn of the century. Transparency in the battlefield, increased precision, miniaturisation and speed of computing have vastly changed the dynamics of war-fighting. Connectivity is data driven; 5G or 6G and the battlefield is visible 24X7, across the globe, at will. AI with its potential is likely to further disrupt warfare.Few areas which have been revolutionised by AI are:
