(by Rhoda Wilson | The Exposé) – Silicon Valley is closer to the world’s military than ever before. And it’s not just big companies, but new companies are also being looked at.
The war in Ukraine has added urgency to the push to push more AI tools onto the battlefield. Those with the most to gain are startups like Palantir, which hope to profit as the military races to update its arsenals with the latest technologies. But long-standing ethical concerns about the use of artificial intelligence in warfare have become more pressing as the technology becomes increasingly advanced, while the prospect of restrictions and regulations governing its use it seems as remote as ever.
On June 30, 2022, NATO announced that it was creating a $1 billion innovation fund that will invest in early-stage startups and venture capital funds that develop “priority” technologies such as intelligence artificial intelligence, big data processing and automation.
The Chinese military likely spends at least $1.6 billion a year on AI, according to a report by Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technologies, and in the U.S. there’s already a significant push underway to reach parity, Lauren says Kahn, researcher. to the Foreign Relations Council. The U.S. Department of Defense requested $874 million for artificial intelligence by 2022, though that number does not reflect the department’s total AI investments, it said in a March report of 2022.
Not only the US military is convinced of the need. European countries, which tend to be more cautious about adopting new technologies, are also spending more money on AI, says Heiko Borchert, co-director of the Defense AI Observatory at Helmut Schmidt University in Hamburg, Germany .
The French and British have identified AI as a key defense technology, and the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, has earmarked $1 billion to develop new defense technologies.
Since the war began, the UK has launched a new AI strategy specifically for defence, and the Germans have earmarked just under half a billion for research and artificial intelligence with an injection of $100 billion in cash to the military.
In a loosely worded press release in 2021, the British Army proudly announced that it had used AI in a military operation for the first time to provide information about the surrounding environment and terrain. The US is working with start-ups to develop autonomous military vehicles. In the future, the swarms of hundreds or even thousands of autonomous drones being developed by the US and British militaries could prove to be powerful and lethal weapons.
Many experts are concerned. Meredith Whittaker, senior AI adviser at the Federal Trade Commission and faculty director of the AI Now Institute, says this push is really more about enriching tech companies than improving military operations. Read the full article >
