- The US military is creating a new language so AI drone swarms can carry out attack missions with a small number of people.
- The Pentagon is spending millions of dollars on a language called “Droid”.
The Pentagon wants to develop autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles that will perform military maneuvers – with little need for human intervention. Scientists at the Pentagon are trying to solve this problem by creating a drone network that does not need external connections. But this can only solve part of the problem. Drones still need a common language to communicate.
Although Droid is designed entirely “machine to machine,” humans are needed to expand the language’s vocabulary as tasks become more complex. When drones don’t have the right language to deal with a particular situation, Unmanned Experts CEO Keven Gambold’s team develops new “words” so machines can collaborate again. And eventually, Gambold hopes the language will expand enough that any vehicle-to-vehicle system can use it to communicate. This could mean self-driving cars coordinating in Droidish to decide routes and avoid obstacles, or futuristic flying vehicles that use it to safely navigate skies full of drones.
Droidce’s development will culminate in a test in Colorado this October; In this test, drones will be launched on a mission and this new language will be used to vote on what tactics to use in a given scenario. One of the missions will see drones attempt to suppress enemy air defenses by detecting a radar system and then “developing tactics to attack it,” Gambold said.
“There are a lot of questions raised by these systems that claim to be bound by the laws of armed conflict,” said military drone expert Lucy Suchman, Professor of Anthropology of Science and Technology at the University of Lancaster in the UK. ‘What happens if autonomous systems target people they are not legally allowed to kill – such as civilians?’ one of these.” she said.
The Air Force uses artificial intelligence not as a weapon; He took care to position it as a tool. D., a senior scientist in information superiority at the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory. Lee Seversky said his department’s focus is on developing artificial intelligence technologies to empower pilots. In recent years, the Air Force has tested an AI co-pilot to help deploy sensors and navigation.
Meanwhile, hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on various data analysis programs that use artificial intelligence to provide options to human pilots. “This allows us to match what the machine is good at with what the human is good at,” Seversky said. “The Air Force’s perspective is truly human-centered AI.” said.
Compiled by: Damla Şayan