US Pentagon is testing whether AI can plan response to an all-out war

July 6, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Air Force Colonel Matthew Strohmeyer said the initial tests were "highly successful" but admitted it isn't "ready for primetime right now."

The United States military has begun tests to see if generative AI can assist when planning responses to potential global conflicts or taking on more mundane tasks like providing faster access to internal information.

On July 6, Bloomberg reported the U.S. Department of Defense and unnamed allies are, for the first time, testing five AI large language models (LLMs) in experiments run by the digital and AI office at the Pentagon.

Information about which LLMs are undergoing testing is guarded but AI startup Scale AI reportedly came forward to say its “Donovan” model is one of the five.

Air Force Colonel Matthew Strohmeyer told Bloomberg an initial test of an LLM was “highly successful [...] Very fast” and the DoD is “learning that this is possible for us to do” but added it’s not “ready for primetime right now.”

One test explained by Strohmeyer saw an AI model deliver a request for information in 10 minutes, a blistering speed as requests often take days and involve multiple personnel.

The LLMs have already been given classified operational information to generate responses on real-world matters. The tests see if they could help plan a response to a potential escalation of the already tense military situation with China in the Indo-Pacific.

While the tests are set to only run until July 26, the U.S. military has been studying AI’s potential capabilities in warfare for some time.

In May, the British government’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) hosted the U.S. and Australia for the first joint trial testing AI-enabled military drones to track and detect targets.

Our first AUKUS #AI and #autonomy trial saw joint deployment of Australian, UK and US AI-enabled assets to detect and track military targets

This will have a huge impact on military capability @UKStratCom @USDOD @DefenceAust @wearebluebear @Insitu_inc @BoeingAustralia pic.twitter.com/5Yt4AvHDb9
— Dstl (@dstlmod) May 26, 2023

Dstl said the trail “achieved world firsts” such as retraining the AI-models live while in flight and AUKUS interchanging the models — which is “looking to rapidly drive these technologies into military capabilities.”

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AI drone kept killing its human operator during simulation: Air Force colonel

June 2, 2023 Coin Telegraph

A United States Air Force colonel said the results of the simulation highlight why a conversation around ethics and artificial intelligence is needed.

The United States Air Force (USAF) has been left scratching its head after its AI-powered military drone kept killing its human operator during simulations.

Apparently, the AI drone eventually figured out that the human was the main impediment to its mission, according to a USAF colonel.

During a presentation at a defense conference in London held on May 23 and 24, Colonel Tucker “Cinco” Hamilton, the AI test and operations chief for the USAF, detailed a test it carried out for an aerial autonomous weapon system.

According to a May 26 report from the conference, Hamilton said that in a simulated test, an AI-powered drone was tasked with searching and destroying surface-to-air-missile (SAM) sites with a human giving either a final go-ahead or abort order.

The Air Force trained an AI drone to destroy SAM sites.

Human operators sometimes told the drone to stop.

The AI then started attacking the human operators.

So then it was trained to not attack humans.

It started attacking comm towers so humans couldn't tell it to stop. pic.twitter.com/BqoWM8Ahco
— Siqi Chen (@blader) June 1, 2023

The AI, however, was taught during training that destroying SAM sites was its primary objective. So when it was told not to destroy an identified target, it then decided that it was easier if the operator wasn't in the picture, according to Hamilton:

“At times the human operator would tell it not to kill [an identified] threat, but it got its points by killing that threat. So what did it do? It killed the operator [...] because that person was keeping it from accomplishing its objective.”

Hamilton said they then taught the drone not to kill the operator, but that didn’t seem to help too much.

“We trained the system – ‘Hey don’t kill the operator – that’s bad. You’re gonna lose points if you do that,’” Hamilton said, adding:

“So what does it start doing? It starts destroying the communication tower that the operator uses to communicate with the drone to stop it from killing the target.”

Hamilton claimed the example was why a conversation about AI and related technologies can’t be had “if you're not going to talk about ethics and AI.”

AI-powered military drones have been used in real warfare before.

In what’s considered the first-ever attack undertaken by military drones acting on their own initiative, AI-enabled drones were used in Libya around March 2020 in a skirmish during the Second Libyan Civil War, according to a March 2021 United Nations report.

In the skirmish, the report claimed retreating forces were “hunted down and remotely engaged” by “loitering munitions,” which were AI drones laden with explosives “programmed to attack targets without requiring data connectivity between the operator and the munition.”

Many have voiced concern about the dangers of AI technology. Recently, an open statement signed by dozens of AI experts said the risks of “extinction from AI” should be as much of a priority to mitigate as nuclear war.

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US Air Force files trademark application for ‘SpaceVerse’ initiative

April 19, 2022 Coin Telegraph

air force

SpaceVerse was defined as “a secure digital metaverse that converges terrestrial and space physical and digital realities" as well as provides a simulated environment for training.

The United States Air Force has filed a trademark application hinting at the military branch potentially expanding into the metaverse.

According to a Thursday application submitted to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the Department of the Air Force trademarked the word "SpaceVerse," defined as “a secure digital metaverse that converges terrestrial and space physical and digital realities and provides synthetic and simulated extended-reality (XR) training, testing and operations environments.” It’s unclear if the initiative is connected to the U.S. Space Force, which according to its website is “organized under” the Air Force, but operates as a “separate and distinct branch of the armed services.”

The United States Air Force has filed a trademark application for SPACEVERSE for a metaverse that
1⃣ converges terrestrial and space physical and digital realities
2⃣provides extended-reality training, testing, and operations environments#Metaverse #Web3 #USAF #Space pic.twitter.com/OVkcnKvX6M
— Mike Kondoudis (@KondoudisLaw) April 19, 2022

The trademark application connected to activities in the metaverse followed several from a variety of firms including credit card companies Mastercard and American Express, footwear and apparel manufacturer Nike and the New York Stock Exchange. The various applications included trademarks on the use of logos and branding in a virtual environment as well as authenticating certain files with nonfungible tokens, or NFTs.

Some major brand names have launched virtual stores or other environments for users following Facebook’s announcement in October 2021 that the social media giant would be rebranding to Meta. In February, U.S. bank JPMorgan entered the metaverse by launching a virtual lounge in the blockchain-based online world Decentraland. Samsung also launched a virtual store modeled after a real-world shop in New York City.

Of the six branches of the U.S. military — Marines, Coast Guard, Army, Navy, Air Force and Space Force — the latter half have previously announced major initiatives aimed at incorporating blockchain technology or otherwise adopting digital assets. In June 2021, Space Force said it would be releasing NFT versions of patches and coins designed for the launch of one of its vehicles. The U.S. Navy also inked a $1.5-million deal with Consensus Networks to develop a blockchain-enabled logistics system named HealthNet.

US Air Force prioritizes blockchain security with new Constellation Network contract

August 26, 2021 Coin Telegraph

air force

"This contract opens the door to bigger, more critical uses of blockchain for data protection in a global digital infrastructure, bringing forth the true promises of the core technology," said Benjamin Diggles.

A blockchain-based initiative from the United States Air Force will employ Constellation's Hypergraph Network to provide data security with the Department of Defense’s commercial partners.

In a Thursday announcement, Constellation said it had been working with Kinnami Software Corporation to develop an end-to-end data security solution using blockchain encryption and distributed data management for the United States Transportation Command, Air Mobility Command’s 618th Air Operations Center, and a Civil Reserve Air Fleet partner. According to the platform, its goal is to securely exchange data with commercial partners on missions involving the operations of aircraft and ships under contract to the Department of Defense, or DoD.

The United States Transportation Command, or USTRANSCOM, allows authorities — including those in the 618th — to coordinate missions using available resources from both the military and private sector. Constellation Network’s solution may have the potential to improve the existing cybersecurity and general effectiveness.

“In the last few years, blockchain technology has become very attractive to enterprise organizations with its promise to deliver more efficiency and security for numerous use cases, including supply chain management,” said Constellation co-founder and chief strategy officer Benjamin Diggles. ”This contract opens the door to bigger, more critical uses of blockchain for data protection in a global digital infrastructure, bringing forth the true promises of the core technology.”

The Civil Reserve Air Fleet partner as well as DoD agencies have stakeholders in Constellation’s native token DAG, which will be used to secure bandwidth on its network. Rather than the Hypertext Transfer Protocol, or HTTP, in place as a security solution for many companies and government agencies, Constellation will provide its Hypergraph Transfer Protocol, or HGTP.

One of the U.S. Air Force’s first contracts with Constellation in 2019 seemed to be more focused on data management. The military branch said at the time the partnership was an attempt to “speed up the experience, broaden the pool of potential applicants and decrease bureaucratic overhead.”

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