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Future soldier
Trust the processor
Militaries across the globe are experimenting with artifi cial intelligence to enhance their war fi ghting capabilities, but challenges remain over how to implement these tools. Gary King speaks to Brigadier Stefan Crossfi eld, principal AI offi cer at the British Army, and Shimona Mohan, research assistant at Centre for Security, Strategy and Technology, Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi, to learn how armed forces can build trust between soldiers and AI systems, and the potential legal and ethical ramifi cations of using autonomous weapons.
T
he torpedo-shaped vessels plummeted from the American planes into a thick canopy of knotted jungle. Unlike the daily bombardments designed to tear through flesh, bone and North Vietnamese morale, these were devices crafted for a different genre of warfare. Calibrated to resemble small trees or bushes, this assemblage of microphones, seismic detectors and olfactory sensors were part of a meticulously coordinated reconnaissance mission. For years, this snaking network of roads and footpaths running from North to South Vietnam had supplied manpower and materials to the Viet Cong and the People’s Army. Cloaked in a dense jungle canopy, the Ho Chi Minh trail was the beating heart of the Vietnamese resistance and bombing it into submission had been a controversial and mostly futile, controversial and costly exercise. Rather than waste artillery on empty pockets of jungle, what US forces really needed was better data. Aided by listening devices and movement sensors, the Americans hoped
to track and target personnel and trucks carrying supplies. When it commenced in 1968, Operation Igloo White was seen as an ingenious ploy to wage an audacious form of electronic warfare, but after five years, the Viet Cong and their guerilla allies remained resilient, allusive and well-stocked. The project had largely failed its objective to provide information on the flow of supplies and troops along the trail.
A matter of intelligence
Despite being posthumously viewed as expensive and ill-judged, Igloo White was, in many ways, ahead of its time. While technological advancement has accelerated far beyond dropping clunky sensors into enemy territory, the strategy anticipated today’s modern armies who are using state of the art devices to aggregate large sums of data to inform decisions taken on and off the battlefield. Buoyed by advancements in AI – a convoluted term that encompasses everything from autonomous robots performing rudimentary tasks
Defence & Security Systems International /
www.defence-and-security.com 29
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