The head of the defense committee has predicted that artificial intelligence(AI) will alter combat as much as the atomic bomb.
The world has less than two years to govern the risky technology, according to Tobias Ellwood, before it becomes a security problem we can no longer control.
The Race for AI Dominance in Warfare
The Tory MP claimed that AI would change the battlefield existentially and that whoever harnessed it first would have a decisive advantage.
Yet, he said that amid escalating international tensions, the UK’s defense budget remained constant at 2.2% of GDP.
In an article for the political magazine The House, he said that AI was the ultimate force multiplier and had the power to completely alter the nature of combat.
The use of the Gatling Cannon during the American Civil War, tanks during the Battle of Cambrai, aircraft carriers at Pearl Harbor, and of course, nuclear weapons during the Second World War gave warfare new dimensions.
The speedy verification of nuclear power regulation was urged by US President Dwight D. Eisenhower in his 1953 Atoms for Peace speech because only the last example was thought to be so existentially dangerous. With AI, the same is now necessary.
His remarks follow Tom Tugendhat, the security minister, who claimed that the ‘finest clerks’ in Parliament couldn’t govern AI because it was advancing too quickly.
In his description of how future battles will be fought, Mr. Ellwood described armies using swarms of unmanned drones to eliminate autonomous opposing forces.
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Chairman’s Stark Warning of AI’s Dark Applications in Warfare
He claimed that the technology will dispel the fog of battle by instantly analyzing vast amounts of data to identify the strength and whereabouts of the adversary.
He also claimed AI would be used for extensive disinformation campaigns and used to target groups to cause the most strife, pointing out how tensions between superpowers were escalating.
This week, Rishi Sunak expressed his aim for the UK to become the hub of AI regulation.
Additionally, he discussed the chance that scientists could unintentionally build machines that were more powerful than they meant, which he claimed could result in quite serious threats that some would call existential, others would say [are] alongside things like pandemics or nuclear war.
In addition to yesterday’s announcement that tech investor and AI expert Ian Hogarth will head the Foundation Model Taskforce, which will oversee AI safety research, the government has already stated that the UK will hold a significant summit on the subject this autumn.
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