The Netherlands-based international peace organisation PAX has just released a report on “The State of AI: Artificial Intelligence, the Military and Increasingly Autonomous Weapons.” The authors warn that “an AI arms race is in its infancy” with “potentially catastrophic results for humanity if states do not ensure human control over emerging weapons technology.”
The report urges governments to work together: “States should not be asking ‘How can we win the AI arms race?’ but rather ‘How can we prevent an AI arms race?’ “
“Right now, there is control over these weapon systems, but keeping control will ultimately require clear rules based in international law,” the report notes.
“We are looking at a near-future where AI-enabled weapons take over human roles, selecting and attacking targets on their own. Without clear international rules, we may enter an era where algorithms, not people, decide over life and death,” warns Daan Kayser, the project leader on autonomous weapons at PAX.
Private companies have a vital role to play, too, believe the authors of the report. Frank Slijper calls companies to “clarify that they will not contribute in any way to the development of lethal autonomous weapons.” The report cites the example of Thales, one of France’s largest weapons makers, which states they will never develop “autonomous killing machines.”
Key findings about AI and the military in Russia
The report outlines the status of AI in military projects of seven countries: United States, China, Russia, the UK, France, Israel and South Korea. Here are the main findings about Russia:
- The Russian AI market will “increase exponentially over the next couple of years,” but “the amounts involved are still only a fraction of the US market, or even just what the US military spends on this.”
- AI is a priority at the highest political level, as witnessed by several presidential statements. In January 2019, Putin ordered his government “to create a national strategy for research into and development of artificial intelligence, according to state media”. This strategy will align “government, military, academic, and private resources to speed the country’s development of artificial intelligence”.
- Local corporations are expected to release a roadmap for AI development by mid-2019. This roadmap would provide a list of projects that “will help identify and remove barriers to the development of end-to-end technologies, as well as forecast the demand for artificial intelligence technologies in economic sectors”.
Russia’s drive for the development and use of AI “currently revolves primarily around its military,” the report found: “While Russia does not have a military-only AI strategy yet, it is clearly working towards integrating AI more comprehensively.”
- In March 2018, while Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu pushed for increasing cooperation between military and civilian scientists in developing AI technology, officials released a 10-point plan, including references to holding AI war games and AI proposals in domestic military forums. Many initiatives from the Ministry of Defense for furthering AI research and applications involve partnerships with universities and the industry.
- In 2015, the Foundation for Advanced Research Projects — a Russian equivalent of the DARPA in the US — opened the National Centre for the Development of Technology and Basic Elements of Robotics. In 2018, it suggested the Ministry of Defense “to standardise artificial intelligence development along four lines of efforts: image recognition, speech recognition, control of autonomous military systems, and information support for weapons’ life-cycle”. A recent video from the Foundation shows its Marker unmanned ground vehicles and drone swarms.
- In early 2019, reports revealed that Russia was developing an autonomous drone, apparently the Sukhoi ‘Okhotnik ’ (‘Hunter’) heavy strike drone. The engine “will pioneer the development of a combat artificial intelligence system”, as a tech website described it.
- The Russian Ministry of Defense has made education a priority, including for example the development of educational standards for “Robotics for Military and Special Purposes”.
- A new city named Era devoted entirely to military innovation is currently under construction. The authorities say that the “main goal of the research and development planned for the technopolis is the creation of military artificial intelligence systems and supporting technologies”.
- In 2017, Kalashnikov announced that it had developed a fully automated combat module based on neural-network technologies that enable it to identify targets and make decisions. However, to date, a combat module using a neural network does not appear to be on the market, notes the PAX report.
Click here to download the full version of the report, or there to read EWDN’s news articles about AI developments in Russia.
