The AI revolution started by ChatGPT continues to accelerate, with machine learning showing up in everything from ecommerce to tractors.
- It’s becoming clear that AI can help smaller players compete by harnessing their data in the same way industrial behemoths have for decades.
- In warfare, AI is giving a similar edge to smaller, tech-savvy militaries – for good and ill.
Here are five ways AI is already finding its way onto the battlefield, and how it is likely to evolve over the next few years:
- Decision-making: Generative AI tools like ChatGPT use internet data to train a model so it can predict how to complete tasks like writing a line of computer code or creating a new painting in Picasso’s style. These same AI techniques can also help military commanders formulate plans.
- Intelligence analysis: AI-enabled image recognition has been around for about a decade. Now militaries, like some businesses, are pursuing AI-enabled algorithms to predict what intelligence data suggests about an adversary’s plans and intentions.
- Smart weapons: Militaries already use killer robots. Automated torpedoes and missiles have been around for decades. But AI algorithms can make automated weapons smarter and more discriminating. The same way Google Translate uses AI to recognize text, algorithms help weapons not just discern a tank from a trolley, but also predict whether the tank is the best one to hit based on its location, direction of movement, and armament.