Humans Now The Weakest Element of the Military Machine
Military necessity, demanding solutions, is the source of many of our technological advancements in the past couple of hundred years. The solutions were required to improve human accuracy, lethality and also in defense of the human actors on the battlefield .. to "keep them in the fight" for as long as possible, and if all goes well, to have them survive.
Technology today is now surpassing the human participant, in almost every aspect, for certain in regard to speed and accuracy. Although limiting the loss of assets is high priority, armor meant to protect occupants of vehicles for instance, has become less of a priority, which allows lighter vehicles to move faster, which in-itself increases its chance to avoid becoming a successful hit, for the enemy. With aircraft, maneuvers once made impossible due to the G-Forces that would be acting upon a human pilot, can be executed by fully automated fighters.
Furthermore, the amount of time an automated system can "stay in the fight", is only limited by the energy it uses to operate - humans by-comparison are constantly in a state of going to sleep. There are drones that can stay a loft, seeking their targets, for many hours at ranges of thousands of miles. According to the Huffington Post article, "Ten Myths About Drones", Boeing is creating a high altitude solar powered UAV that can remain in flight for up to 5 years.
Soldiers are the ground, infantry and forward operators engaged in intelligence gathering and force protection, are increasingly augmented by robotic systems - small arms themselves are being modified to coordinate with aerial vehicles. Exoskeletons, robotic pack mules and heavy weapons platforms, intelligent mines, so and so forth, are quickly making the front-line soldier more of a technology coordinator and very very far from the Sgt. Rocks of old.
As described in The Science Daily, The University of Cincinnati developed A.I. for a man vs machine combat simulation, in June 2016:
ALPHA is currently viewed as a research tool for manned and unmanned teaming in a simulation environment. In its earliest iterations, ALPHA consistently outperformed a baseline computer program previously used by the Air Force Research Lab for research. In other words, it defeated other AI opponents.In fact, it was only after early iterations of ALPHA bested other computer program opponents that Lee (Retired Air Force Colonel Gene Lee) then took to manual controls against a more mature version of ALPHA last October. Not only was Lee not able to score a kill against ALPHA after repeated attempts, he was shot out of the air every time during protracted engagements in the simulator.
Moving Into Dangerous Territory to Remain Ahead of "The Enemy"
Despite warnings from prominent scientists and engineers, such as Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking, A.I. is seen as an inevitable component of an increasingly automated war machine. We understand the motivation of the US military to seek increasing technological advantage, as is included in their Joint Vision 2020 document
Will the speed and accuracy of human decision-making be next on the list of things to eliminate? One can easily envision drones in constant flight, seeking targets day-n-night, not only with the ability to find a target but to decide when and where that target should be destroyed, based on any number of factors. Irregardless of how "science-fictiony" it sounds, this is not only on the drawing board, its development is well-underway. At some point we "citizens" will have to decide where the boundaries will be drawn, because the machine only knows to improve itself, and those doing the planning are very much part of the machine.
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