Modern warfare

Military documents reveal how the US Army plans to deploy AI in future wars

Tomorrow’s wars will be fought with a lethal combination of soldiers, drones, and AI-powered systems. The Internet of Battle Things, as it’s being called, is a vast battlefield network of machines and humans — and the US Army is working to make it a reality.

In what reads like a list of kill-streak perks in a Call of Duty game, the Army described what the “things” in its “Internet of Battle Things” would be in a just-released white paper:

Most of such intelligent things will not be too dissimilar from the systems we see on today’s battlefield, such as unattended ground sensors, guided missiles (especially the fire-and-forget variety) and of course the unmanned aerial systems (UAVs). They will likely include physical robots ranging from very small size (such as an insect-scale mobile sensors) to large vehicle that can carry troops and supplies. Some will fly, others will crawl or walk or ride.