Artificial Intelligence to Drive Future Weapons Development

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly permeating the defense industry to aid and improve human decision-making. Over the past few years several new products and technologies have come into play which indicates that this technology is on an upward trajectory.

AI has a clear edge in areas such as super-fast decision-making required in repetitive tasks and combining multiple data inputs from various sensors to throw up options for decision-making and even making some of these decisions by itself.

AI in defense has given rise to autonomous weapons, ones that act on their own based on programmed threats.

In March 2019, the UN held a meeting to discuss a ban on autonomous weapons called by 25 nations which were opposed by the US, South Korea, Russia, Israel, China, and Australia. These countries have made substantial investments in unmanned, autonomous systems.