UK, USA and Australia test swarms of AI-guided drones
The British Army has conducted the first military exercise using an artificial intelligence (AI)-guided drone swarm in collaboration with the United States and Australia.
The trilateral exercise, held at Upavon Airport in south-west England, was part of the AUKUS Advanced Capabilities Pillar programme, aimed at developing and testing cutting-edge technologies to strengthen the capabilities of the tripartite alliance.
According to the UK's Defense Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL), the swarm of drones detected and tracked military targets " in a realistic environment and in real time ".
The event allowed the three countries to share artificial intelligence models to ensure compatibility with participating unmanned aerial systems (UAS).
Platforms deployed in the exercise included the UAS Blue Bear Ghost and CT-220, the Challenger 2 tank, the Warrior armored vehicle and the Viking unmanned ground vehicle.
Drone Blue Bear
"This exercise demonstrates the military advantage of AUKUS's advanced capabilities, as we work in coalition to identify, track and counter potential adversaries from a greater distance and with greater speed," said UK Deputy Chief of Defense Staff Rob Magowan.
Operational benefits
The DSTL explained that the need for AI-enabled systems has increased with the rapidly changing strategic environment.
Autonomy and AI will reportedly transform the way defense operates, and adapting these technologies at the right pace can help the US, UK and Australia maintain their operational advantages on the ground. battle.
The recent trial is seen as a key step to enable AUKUS to access the best AI, reduce duplication of effort and ensure interoperability.
"Accelerated technological advances will provide the operational advantages needed to defeat current and future threats throughout the battlespace," Magowan said.
“We are committed to working with partners to ensure we achieve this goal while promoting the responsible development and use of AI.”
An ethical problem? Depends
The use of AI in this case appears to be simply instrumental in driving a complex swarm of drones, so the strategic decision is still in the hands of man. AI only helps coordinate the movements of a plurality of drones, which would otherwise require many trained and coordinated operators, but the decision of who and what to attack is always in the hands of humans.
But how long will it be before the decision to attack is left directly to the AI?
Thanks to our Telegram channel you can stay updated on the publication of new articles from Economic Scenarios.
The article UK, US and Australia test AI-guided drone swarms comes from Economic Scenarios .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/uk-usa-e-australia-testano-sciami-di-droni-guidati-dalla-ai/ on Thu, 01 Jun 2023 08:00:15 +0000.