America’s approach to AI for defense

Does it meet the requirements of national defense?

Geopolitical competition around artificial intelligence is an increasingly common concern. Last week, the US Defense Department released a summary of its AI strategy.

The summary was 18-pages long, so I asked EV reader Michael Sulmeyer, Senior Fellow at Georgetown's School of Foreign Service, for comments on the summary.

My take, before you get to the comments, is that it seems a little half-hearted and less well-organised than public summaries of, say, Chinese civil-military fusion.  

Michael’s brief points:

“The asserted rationale for this U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) AI strategy is that China and Russia are

making significant investments in AI for military purposes. [...] These investments threaten to erode our technological and operational advantages and destabilize the free and open international order.

To respond, this AI strategy states the U.S. military will incorporate AI-related technologies to 1) maintain its strategic position, 2) prevail on future battlefields, and 3) saf…