The Pentagon intends to deploy thousands of autonomous vehicles with artificial intelligence by 2026, as part of an initiative called Replicator. Artificial intelligence already plays a key role in US military operations, aiding in combat management and intelligence. The main goal of Replicator is to accelerate the use of artificial intelligence in the American military sphere, to avoid falling behind China.
Thanks to artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles can predict the maintenance of Air Force aircraft and track enemy forces. With the speed of data processing and improved machine-to-machine communication, this progress could lead to humans playing the role of supervisors.
The Replicator plan is driven by the need to implement AI developments made possible by recent breakthroughs in machine learning. The Pentagon has more than 800 projects with artificial intelligence, many of which are at the testing stage and already support the effectiveness of military operations.
One of the key areas of application of artificial intelligence is space, the new frontier of military competition. The US is trying to keep up with China in this regard and is already using autonomous technologies to track objects in space.
The Replicator could greatly accelerate the introduction of fully autonomous lethal weapons deployed en masse in vast swarms of drones. However, it is not yet clear whether the Pentagon is conducting a mandatory assessment of such systems under the 2012 directives. It is officially stated that humans will always be in control of the situation, but the rapid progress in the field of artificial intelligence will force humans to act as supervisors.
