Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Modern Warfare :: essays research papers

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Modern Warfare It is well known that throughout history man's favourite past time has been to make war. It has always been recognised that the opponent with the better weapons usually came out victorious. Nowadays, there is an increasing dependency, by the more developed nations, on what are called smart weapons and on the development of these weapons. The social impact of AI on warfare is something which needs to be considered very carefully for it raises many ethical and moral issues and arguments. The use of smart weapons raises many questions on the price paid to develop these weapons; money which could be used to solve most of the world's social problems such as poverty, hunger, etc. Another issue is the safety involved in the use of these weapons. Can we really make a weapon that does everything on its own without human help and are these weapons a threat to civilians? The main goal of this essay is to discuss whether it is justifiable to use AI in warfare and to what extent. The old time dream of making war bloodless by science is finally becoming a reality. The strongest man will not win, but the one with the best machines will. Modernising the weapons used in war has been an issue since the beginning. Nowadays, the military has spent billions of dollars perfecting stealth technology to allow planes to slip past enemy lines undetected. The technology involved in a complicated system such as these fighter planes is immense. The older planes are packed with high tech gear such as micro processors, laser guiding devices, electromagnetic jammers and infrared sensors. With newer planes, the airforce is experimenting with a virtual reality helmet that projects a cartoon like image of the battlefield for the pilot, with flashing symbols for enemy planes. What is more, if a pilot passes out for various reasons such as the "G" force from a tight turn, then a computer system can automatically take over while the pilot is disabled. A recent example of the use of Al in warfare is the Gulf War. In operation Desert Storm, many weapons such as 'smart' Bombs were used. These were highly complex systems which used superior guidance capabilities but they did not contain any expert systems or neural networks. The development of weapons which use highly complex systems has drastically reduced the number of human casualties in wartime. The bloodshed is minimised because of the accuracy of the computer systems used. This has been an advantage that has brought a lot of praise to the development of such sophisticated (not