{"id":21890,"date":"2023-07-05T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-07-05T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/c4isrnet\/uncategorized\/2023\/07\/05\/us-military-calls-for-better-weapons-to-fight-artificial-intelligence\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T20:50:38","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T20:50:38","slug":"us-military-calls-for-better-weapons-to-fight-artificial-intelligence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/c4isrnet\/artificial-intelligence\/2023\/07\/05\/us-military-calls-for-better-weapons-to-fight-artificial-intelligence\/","title":{"rendered":"US military calls for better weapons to fight artificial intelligence"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WASHINGTON \u2014 After years of catching grief for exquisite weapons acquisition programs with creeping requirements leading to lengthy delays and budget overruns, the Pentagon now finds itself with a different sort of headache: how to stop weapons and systems that are dirt cheap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The growing problem of inexpensive unmanned systems employing autonomy and artificial intelligence has been a longtime subject of military study and discussion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the ongoing conflict in Ukraine has underscored just how effective smart tech accessible to anyone may be in neutralizing the elaborate tools of conventional warfare. In one example from the war, Ukraine reportedly used a Chinese-made DJI drone worth $2,000<\/a> to destroy a Russian T-90 tank worth millions<\/a> of dollars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Drawing on a newfound urgency, the U.S. undersecretary of defense for research and engineering published a need statement in May, calling on industry to help develop new weapons that can effectively meet the new threat from unmanned, autonomous and AI defense-driven systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMulti- and cross-domain Uncrewed Systems (UxS) continue to be a threat to U.S. forces around the world. This threat is expanding in all domestic and international regions,\u201d the need statement begins, citing the directive in the 2022 National Defense Strategy to stay ahead of the problem. \u201cThis threat is no longer just in the aerial domain, but also from ground, subterranean, sea, and undersea domains. Near-peer adversary nations are rapidly incorporating robust UxS capabilities into their military formations, and non-state actors are using UxS to increase their asymmetric advantage.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While aerial drones have had the most opportunities to make a mark on the battlefield, both in Ukraine and the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in the South Caucasus, undersea systems may not be far behind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ukrainian unmanned underwater vessels, such as the Toloka TLK-150<\/a>, likely already have been responsible for limiting Russian aggression<\/a> at sea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And in the subterranean realm, expected to become an increasingly critical domain<\/a> as more conflicts play out in and around big cities, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency<\/a> is working to develop unmanned systems that can navigate the tight and dark spaces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The newly published need statement calls for weapons that can destroy or stymie uncrewed threats in the following ways:<\/p>\n\n\n\n