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Secret Pentagon AI Program Hunts Hidden Nuclear Missiles (reuters.com) 40
Slashdot reader drdread66 shares this article from Reuters:
The U.S. military is increasing spending on a secret research effort to use artificial intelligence to help anticipate the launch of a nuclear-capable missile, as well as track and target mobile launchers in North Korea and elsewhere. The effort has gone largely unreported, and the few publicly available details about it are buried under a layer of near impenetrable jargon in the latest Pentagon budget. But U.S. officials familiar with the research told Reuters there are multiple classified programs now under way to explore how to develop AI-driven systems to better protect the United States against a potential nuclear missile strike.
If the research is successful, such computer systems would be able to think for themselves, scouring huge amounts of data, including satellite imagery, with a speed and accuracy beyond the capability of humans, to look for signs of preparations for a missile launch, according to more than half a dozen sources. The sources included U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the research is classified. Forewarned, the U.S. government would be able to pursue diplomatic options or, in the case of an imminent attack, the military would have more time to try to destroy the missiles before they were launched, or try to intercept them.
Reuters calls it "one indicator of the growing importance of the research on AI-powered anti-missile systems," adding "The Pentagon is in a race against China and Russia to infuse more AI into its war machine, to create more sophisticated autonomous systems that are able to learn by themselves to carry out specific tasks."
One official told Reuters that an AI prototype for tracking missile launchers is already being tested.
If the research is successful, such computer systems would be able to think for themselves, scouring huge amounts of data, including satellite imagery, with a speed and accuracy beyond the capability of humans, to look for signs of preparations for a missile launch, according to more than half a dozen sources. The sources included U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the research is classified. Forewarned, the U.S. government would be able to pursue diplomatic options or, in the case of an imminent attack, the military would have more time to try to destroy the missiles before they were launched, or try to intercept them.
Reuters calls it "one indicator of the growing importance of the research on AI-powered anti-missile systems," adding "The Pentagon is in a race against China and Russia to infuse more AI into its war machine, to create more sophisticated autonomous systems that are able to learn by themselves to carry out specific tasks."
One official told Reuters that an AI prototype for tracking missile launchers is already being tested.
Rise of the machines (Score:1)
Didnâ(TM)t SkyNet start out like this??
What could possibly go wrong? (Score:5, Interesting)
They made a movie a long time ago that explored what could happen if the AI controlling the US missiles took the initiative to directly talk to the AI controlling the Russian missiles. (Hint: it didn't turn out well for those pesky humans.)
Re: (Score:3)
didn't turn out well for those pesky humans
Define 'not well'. Dr. Forbin got it on with Susan Clark.
Re: (Score:3)
That's a "colossally" funny joke because it's flying over the heads of all the high ID number slashdotters.
Re: (Score:2)
Ahem.
*Cough* /Ron Swanson >
< Ron Swanson >
Do you want 'Wargames' with Matthew Broderick? Because this is how you get 'Wargames' with Matthew Broderick.
<
Re: (Score:1)
I predict a First Strike due to floating point error in a logistic regression somewhere deep inside a neural network. No possible way to ascertain correctness or verification, too little tim
SkyNet v0.1b (Score:1)
It begins
Re: (Score:2)
Not AI (Score:3)
Re: (Score:1)
But does it hunt... (Score:2)
What could possibly go wrong? (Score:3)
I have to state the obvious...
Re: (Score:2)
Nothing. The idea is to use automation to sift through a large amount of data and flag activities of interest for examination by human analysts. This allows examination of more information, more timely detection and less risk of missing something. No decision is going to be made by software.
Re: (Score:2)
What are they going to use for a training set? It's not like there's a nuclear missile launch every week, is it?
From way back when (Score:2)
Seems unreliable (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The CIA would never talk about spying methods.
In the USA the more media attention a part of the gov/mil gets the more political leaders will feel like granting more budget.
No good news? No extra budget growth. Thats a years extra budget lost to the CIA, Navy, Army...
Get people talking about the good news a
"would be able to think" (Score:2)
No. Not at all. Not even one bit. Actually thinking machines are at the very least 50 years in the future, probably much longer and may also be completely impossible. Stop propagating such utter nonsense. All we have today is "weak AI" which is properly just called "automation". It has no intelligence, it has no concept of anything, it has no understanding of anything and it most certainly cannot think.
Also, does anybody remember the stupid pattern recognizers (also called "AI" by the clueless) that got fo
AI rules (Score:1)
I read interesting article about soviet union experiments about high altitude nuclear explosions tests, so the result of them demonstrated that in case of massive attack the first explosion eliminates all radar systems and they become virtually blind, so the only way to intercept missiles is to attack them simultaneously what is virtually impossible. That is why Ronald Reigan's SDI assume use of heavy lasers, since it is only possibility to eliminate all warheads simultaneously in space, otherwise the first
Oh Oh, here comes Colossus (Score:2)
"Professor Charles Forbin, a leading cybernetics expert of international repute, arrives at the White House to brief the President of the United States of North America (Canada and the United States are one country, the USNA) to announce the completion of Project Colossus, a computer system in the Rocky Mountains, designed to assume control of the USNA's nuclear defences. Although the USNA President eagerly relieves himself of that burden, Prof. Forbin voices doubt about conferring absolute military power t
Waste of time (Score:1)