Ukraine War May Become a Proving Ground for AI
AI and quantum computing could revolutionize offensive operations and, perhaps more important, logistics.
Getting smarter?
Photographer: Tom Brenner/Bloomberg
Artificial intelligence is, suddenly, everywhere. We are awash in ideas about how we can use AI productively — from agriculture to climate change to engineering to software construction. And, equally, there are plenty of cautionary notes being struck about using AI to control societies, manipulate economies, defeat commercial opponents, and generally fulfill Arthur C. Clarke’s visions of machines dominating man in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Thus far, however, relatively little has been written about the implications of AI on warfare and geopolitics. For better and worse, those arenas also lend themselves to a variety of ways in which new technologies can suddenly break apart paradigms. Think of Agincourt in 1415, a medieval battle in which the flower of the French nobility — sporting the key technology of that age, plate armor — were slaughtered at long range through an emerging technology, English longbowmen led by King Henry V. Military technology — submarines, radar, sonar, nuclear weapons — can change the global balance in an instant.