Army General Says He's Using AI To Improve 'Decision-Making' (arstechnica.com) 56
Maj. Gen. William Taylor told reporters at the Association of the US Army Conference in Washington this week that he and the Eighth Army he commands out of South Korea are regularly using AI for decision-making. Taylor said he has been asking AI chatbots to help build models for personal decisions that affect his organization and overall readiness. The general referred to his chatbot companion as "Chat" and said the technology has been useful for predictive analysis in logistical planning and operational purposes.
list games (Score:5, Funny)
list games
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on rereading it about five times I think it was intended as a joke. If so, you should have specified "war games".
"List Games", when in context of Military and A.I. is obvious. You even eventually figured it out, but decided to post. And post a lot.
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Here's another one he can look up -- "Unemployed in Greenland".
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You lack credibility to motivate research. But I vaguely recall your handle as sometimes Funny. Perhaps an accident or side effect of a lack of wit?
Make me laugh. Try to convince me you read a book this year.
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Again, I suspect a movie reference and I haven't seen it. And you have failed to motivate me enough to look up the possible meme. I think there was a time when movies were not weapons of mass stupidity. But perhaps my memories are slipping.
As regards your accusation, your post was so sloppy I have no idea what you were referring to within my comment or talking about in general. Unless you were going for Funny and didn't make it. Brevity is often the soul of wit, but I lack concision.
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I'm still updating my Tripod page. But you're still failing to motivate curiosity or interest or civility or whatever. You do have a reason to post, right?
Me? I'm certainly not expecting much in the way of intelligent discussion on Slashdot these years. Mostly I'm trying to clarify my own thinking on whatever topic has managed to perturb my ADHD.
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NAK
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FP appears to be a pointless win of the FP race. Care to explain what you [Joe Dragon] meant? Or maybe it would be more appropriate if you addressed your motivations? [Actually, on rereading it about five times I think it was intended as a joke. If so, you should have specified "war games".]
But without knowing what you mean, I am still sure that my perspective on the topic is different. Most of my career was spent in fields where AI is sure already having a huge impact and that impact is growing rapidly: Programming, teaching, and editing. If I was still working for money then I would face the choice of using the AI tools to compete or being too slow and unable to compete because I preferred to do more of my own thinking. But if I didn't already know how to think, then I believe the AI tools would prevent me from learning the fundamentals of how to think about, understand, and solve problems. And now I think we are the last human generation who will understand the basics and on that basis the future looks quite bleak. Many books and stories speculated about the resulting stupidification. The Time Machine is perhaps the most classic and memorable? (I could rummage around my database of books to find more citations. Or I could ask an AI to scan the titles and nominate candidates. The AI could probably complete the task within seconds.)
Just finished Nexus by Harari. Excellent book and I strongly recommend it (and my next writing project should be to extend my long review of that book). However he is an optimist and ultimately sees things through rose-colored glasses, while I am a realist and the real data has convinced me that the future is bleak. And I'm already sure that I've been flagged as a minor enemy of the state and the most optimistic perspective I can take is that I hope I am judged to be "mostly harmless" and be ignored on that bais. But "the state" probably already knows about "worse" books I've read and might decide to make an example of me.
Returning to the story at hand, my career even included a hitch in the service. Way back before this "Thank you for your service" garbage. There was a significant difference between the few officers who had served before getting commissioned and the rest of them. Those officers had learned some fundamentals.
[I'll check back tomorrow to see if the story produced any Funny. Slashdot will even be so kind to as to tell me if there are any direct reactions to my contribution... And of course I don't care about the TL;DR reactions. But tomorrow is the end of time in Slashdot's perspective, even for stories and topics that deserve more serious and longer consideration.]
But I'd prefer that the censorious sock puppets at least give me a hint as to which bit pissed them off. Perhaps the part about service?
Language model is not logic model (Score:2)
Using a language model to make important military decisions?
That'll work out well.
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... but we will have ration of chocolate increased to 20 grams!
Ask Julia [bing.com] to get you some instead, if you haven't already...
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Oh you sweet innocent child (Score:3, Insightful)
That's not what's happening. That's never what happens. Any time someone uses an ai chat bot as part of their work, they immediately turn into drooling idiots. "So I asked ChatGPT for some numbers and this is what it gave me." Sometimes they'll ask it for citations, it makes up some citations. They never check that the data or citations are valid. Their perfect AI god gave them perfect numbers. The computer is always correct.
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The computer is always correct.
You don't have to mess with an AI for very long to figure out that isn't true. I often consult them for coding and lots of the code won't even run! I find it most useful for telling me which existing python module works for my problem, but I usually have to write the code myself.
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You don't have to mess with an AI for very long to figure out that isn't true.
That assumes that you have some way of objectively evaluating the information AI provides. There are certainly cases where you can "catch" AI errors or see them in the results. There are a lot of decisions where there is no immediate consequence to measure its reliability. In fact those are the hardest decisions where letting AI make them is the same as passing the buck up to your boss.
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Presumably you understand coding well enough to check the bot's work. Most people are not programmers.
Typical users of AI, use it precisely because they don't understand something. Or, they're using it as a shortcut, so that they don't have to read a primary source and don't have to use any brain cells second-guessing the answer.
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It's both people's natural inclination to use it this way, and the way it's actively marketed. "A PHD in your pocket." "A teacher." "An expert on tap."
A teacher instructs someone who doesn't know.
An expert is there to advise people who don't know.
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That's not what's happening. That's never what happens. Any time someone uses an ai chat bot as part of their work, they immediately turn into drooling idiots.
Yeah, who needs a chatbot when you can make unqualified claims as statements of fact. You don't even need citations, such as the ones you're claiming (without citation) they make up. (Which just to be clear, they do, a certain amount, although a casual interpretation of your words suggests you're implying "always".)
Look, there are lots of problems wit
Re: Language model is not logic model (Score:2)
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north korea 1st strike = LOSER north korea
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More like Loser: North Korea AND South Korea AND world stock markets. They could flatten Seoul in about 20 minutes with the dug-in and pre-aimed artillery they've had next to the border since the armistice, which is probably the only reason that the South hasn't invaded yet. Imagine the effect on the NYSE of Hyundai, Samsung, Kia and LG instantaneously decapitated.
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It likely won't be any worse than the humans at the Pentagram have done over the last 80 years. The only place that we definitively "won" in that whole time is Grenada, when the "opponent" was around 50 Cuban engineers extending runways for the tourist trade. We've had some pretty dramatic losses though, including to a bunch of goat herders with 40 year old Kalashnikovs.
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It should make defeating your opponent easier, anyway. Just find out what LLM your opponent is using for their attack strategy, and ask it for advice on military deployment. Upgrade your defenses accordingly!
This gives new meaning... (Score:5, Insightful)
This gives new meaning to the classic oxymoron "Army intelligence."
--JoshK.
Make it a game... with classified intel. (Score:5, Interesting)
A couple years ago, one of the base security officers in charge of making sure all his SP's/MP's/security guys/whatevers knew where everything (classified) was and how to get there fast... Including the big boys... aka nukes. So naturally to make it fun and interactive to stimulate learning, he dumped all the questions (and answers) into Kahoot, the Norwegian online trivia engine. (Or one similar to it).
My way of saying I'm a little wary of some of these officers using this stuff.
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So Generals (Score:3)
Verification of Answers (Score:2)
Proved you have the means to readily verify the correctness of what AI suggests, it's fine to use it, and can be quicker. The trouble happens when lazy people forget the need to verify what AI tells you. Then AI turns into a magic genie with a twisted sense of humour.
Somebody needs to be fired (Score:3)
And rather urgently. For gross incompetence and leaking secrets.
AGI has arrived in 2025 (Score:5, Funny)
Artificial GENERAL Intelligence.
That's Major news.
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But is there even a Colonel of truth in it?
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Keep it private, will ya???
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Sound the bugle call "More Funny mod points".
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Sadly on target.
But we already knew they were targeting the so-called smartphones.
Probably a good double check (Score:2)
AI model of a modern Major-General (Score:2, Insightful)
I am the AI model of a modern Major-General
I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral
I know the kings of England, and I quote the fights historical
From Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical
I'm very well acquainted, too, with matters mathematical
I understand equations, both the simple and quadratical
About binomial theorem I am teeming with a lot o' news
With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse
With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse!
With many cheerful facts abou
Not the same as it actually making the decision (Score:2)
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He doesn't come up and say: "Hey chat, who should we bomb today?"
No need, the desired answer, for now, seems to be Venezuela.
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Or Iran. Or Somalia. Or Yemen. Or maybe just give the weapons away to someone else who can use them to commit more war crimes for us.
Could be worse ... (Score:2)
The general referred to his chatbot companion as "Chat" ...
He could have named it "Chad", though that would fit with recent ramblings from the Secretary of Defense -- I mean, War. (sigh)
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It makes sense, after all... (Score:2)
SwiftOnSecurity Called It (Score:2)
Not surprised (Score:2)