The U.S. Military Bets Big On Artificial Intelligence

The Pentagon is currently funding over 800 separate AI projects

By Ken Klippenstein, KenKlippenstein.com

A great deal is being written about artificial intelligence: how it’s ruining education, how it’s taking over entertainment, and how it’s going to forge an unforgiving surveillance state that will sniff out our every blip to get at what we’re up to and what we’re thinking.

The Pentagon, which is currently funding a whopping 868 separate artificial intelligence projects, as I reported in a new article for The Intercept, is gaga for AI. As the federal agency with the most money, it plays the most influential role in determining what the U.S. government is going to focus on.

When any new technology — somehow always a silver bullet that is going to vanquish America’s foes — emerges, it is ripe for waste and dead-end inquiries. The case of AI is no different. Much of the Pentagon’s interest in AI is to help it to solve a problem of its own making: the intelligence apparatus collects too much information, way too much for analysts and even machines to make sense of. AI is needed, the Pentagon now says, to allow those machines to “learn” what is in the vast quantities of data. This is in its infancy now, but that’s why it’s important to intercept the train before it picks up so much momentum there’s no stopping it, or more importantly, direct it to the right station.