The Pentagon Is Being Retrofitted With AI As It Seeks To Automate Its "Kill Chain" But Is Trying To Make Sure It Does Not Go Rogue
The “kill chain” refers to the military’s process of identifying, tracking, and eliminating threats, involving a complex system of sensors, platforms, and weapons.
The following report are excerpts by Maxwell via TechCrunch:
Leading AI developers, such as OpenAI and Anthropic, are threading a delicate needle to sell software to the United States military: make the Pentagon more efficient, without letting their AI kill people.
Today, their tools are not being used as weapons, but AI is giving the Department of Defense a “significant advantage” in identifying, tracking, and assessing threats, the Pentagon’s Chief Digital and AI Officer, Dr. Radha Plumb, told TechCrunch in a phone interview.
“We obviously are increasing the ways in which we can speed up the execution of kill chain so that our commanders can respond in the right time to protect our forces,” said Plumb.
The “kill chain” refers to the military’s process of identifying, tracking, and eliminating threats, involving a complex system of sensors, platforms, and weapons. Generative AI is proving helpful during the planning and strategizing phases of the kill chain, according to Plumb.
The relationship between the Pentagon and AI developers is a relatively new one. OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta walked back their usage policies in 2024 to let U.S. intelligence and defense agencies use their AI systems. However, they still don’t allow their AI to harm humans.
“We’ve been really clear on what we will and won’t use their technologies for,” Plumb said, when asked how the Pentagon works with AI model providers.
[…] Meta partnered with Lockheed Martin and Booz Allen, among others, to bring its Llama AI models to defense agencies in November. That same month, Anthropic teamed up with Palantir. In December, OpenAI struck a similar deal with Anduril. More quietly, Cohere has also been deploying its models with Palantir.
“Playing through different scenarios is something that generative AI can be helpful with,” said Plumb. “It allows you to take advantage of the full range of tools our commanders have available, but also think creatively about different response options and potential trade offs in an environment where there’s a potential threat, or series of threats, that need to be prosecuted.”
It’s unclear whose technology the Pentagon is using for this work; using generative AI in the kill chain (even at the early planning phase) does seem to violate the usage policies of several leading model developers. Anthropic’s policy, for example, prohibits using its models to produce or modify “systems designed to cause harm to or loss of human life.”
In response to our questions, Anthropic pointed TechCrunch towards its CEO Dario Amodei’s recent interview with the Financial Times, where he defended his military work:
The position that we should never use AI in defense and intelligence settings doesn’t make sense to me. The position that we should go gangbusters and use it to make anything we want — up to and including doomsday weapons — that’s obviously just as crazy. We’re trying to seek the middle ground, to do things responsibly.
OpenAI, Meta, and Cohere did not respond to TechCrunch’s request for comment.
Anduril CEO Palmer Luckey recently noted on X that the U.S. military has a long history of purchasing and using autonomous weapons systems such as a CIWS turret.
“The DoD has been purchasing and using autonomous weapons systems for decades now. Their use (and export!) is well-understood, tightly defined, and explicitly regulated by rules that are not at all voluntary,” said Luckey.
But when TechCrunch asked if the Pentagon buys and operates weapons that are fully autonomous – ones with no humans in the loop – Plumb rejected the idea on principle.
“No, is the short answer,” said Plumb. “As a matter of both reliability and ethics, we’ll always have humans involved in the decision to employ force, and that includes for our weapon systems.”
Plumb said the idea that automated systems are independently making life and death decisions was “too binary,” and the reality was less “science fiction-y.” Rather, she suggested the Pentagon’s use of AI systems are really a collaboration between humans and machines, where senior leaders are making active decisions throughout the entire process.
“People tend to think about this like there are robots somewhere, and then the gonculator [a fictional autonomous machine] spits out a sheet of paper, and humans just check a box,” said Plumb. “That’s not how human-machine teaming works, and that’s not an effective way to use these types of AI systems.”
AUTHOR COMMENTARY
Last year The WinePress detailed how Israel has already taken steps further than the U.S. by using to make autonomous decisions to carry out strikes on select targets, though whistleblowers from the IDF have admitted that their AI algorithm has gone rogue scores of times and has indiscriminately killed hundreds, if not thousands, of innocent civilians without any oversight.
This is the future of warfare; and beyond that, this is another reason - as I have pointed out - that Musk and DOGE, and other big-tech groups are currently doing in the government: replacing the no longer necessary staff with AI.
And, dare I ask, how much of this will be used against us first and foremost?
Isaiah 32:7 The instruments also of the churl are evil: he deviseth wicked devices to destroy the poor with lying words, even when the needy speaketh right.
[7] Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock? [8] Say I these things as a man? or saith not the law the same also? [9] For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? [10] Or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope. (1 Corinthians 9:7-10).
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Revelation 13:15 And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.
Yes AI likely spent it's time listening and learning from Democrats the chiefest of liars like their daddy the devil, fortunately the end outcome of all this AI looks like something right the movie series "TERMINATOR" I am glad we are leaving soon.