The US Department of Defense has just announced the selection of 4 leading technology companies including Google, xAI, Anthropic and OpenAI to promote the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into military and national security activities.
Each company will receive contracts worth up to $200 million to develop AI systems for key tasks.
The military will accelerate the application of advanced AI by directly exploiting technologies developed by the private sector, said Mr. Doug Matty, Director of the Defense Department's Office of Digital Engineering and Artificial Intelligence.
These technologies will be integrated into the existing system to serve important areas such as combat, intelligence analysis, logistics and operations management.
The US military has now begun to use generative AI for simple tasks such as data lookup or technical assistance. However, AI is being evaluated as being more powerful because it can analyze situations, make decisions and actions without the need for human direct control.
The Pentagon has not yet disclosed specific details about the missions supported in this program, but the US Department of Defense has previously emphasized its desire to apply AI to intelligence analysis, combat coordination, transportation and data collection.
The partnership with four leading technology companies shows that the US is stepping up efforts to modernize the military with artificial intelligence technology in the context of increasing global defense technology competition.
This is considered a strategic step to maintain the technological advantage and combat capability of the US in the AI era.
However, despite being expected to improve combat capabilities, the deployment of AI in the military also raises many concerns about ethics and security.
A report by the Human Rights Monitoring Organization warned that allowing AI agents to make decisions on the battlefield themselves could have serious consequences because the technology is easily influenced by prejudice - which often occurs during training.
Not stopping there, false data can be further consolidated when AI operates in uncontrolled environments such as battlefields. This overshadows moral boundaries and directly threatens the right to life.
There was a time when AI creator named Grok of xAI caused controversy when creatingracist statements and jewish articles, showing the real risk if such systems were deployed in situations that determine survival.
