In this blog post, we will examine from various angles whether artificial intelligence will become a tool to protect humanity or a threat when applied to military weapons.
What is artificial intelligence? Artificial intelligence is a field of computer science and information technology that studies how to enable computers to perform tasks that require human intelligence, such as thinking, learning, and self-improvement.
Artificial intelligence technology is currently used all over the world. Since the term “artificial intelligence” was coined at the Dartmouth Conference in 1956, it has continued to evolve through repeated research, and various technologies have been developed and are now used in many fields. For example, technology that identifies user characteristics and finds what they want based on their tendencies is used on various websites and smartphones.
AI tech is being developed to make our lives easier, but it’s not the only place where it’s making a big impact. Like AlphaGo, which beat professional Go player Lee Sedol, AI can even beat humans at games by learning from them. If AI is used in military tech, we need to think about how AI with military power will affect humanity, national security, and even the future of humanity.
Artificial intelligence technology is not just about developing robots that kill people. It will be used in countless fields, such as cyber attacks on networks and system destruction. Furthermore, these risks could affect not only hostile countries but also humanity as a whole. Brain scientist Kim Dae-sik considers the development of “superintelligence” so dangerous that he says the development of artificial intelligence should be prohibited by law. Nick Bostrom, an Oxford philosopher and renowned scholar in the field of artificial intelligence, defines superintelligence as artificial intelligence that surpasses humans in all areas, including scientific creation, general knowledge, and social skills. The concept of superintelligence is easily found in movies. The Terminator series shows the greatest danger that artificial intelligence can pose to humanity. In the movie, artificial intelligence takes control of the military system and considers humanity, which seeks to shut it down, as the enemy, mobilizing all military forces to destroy humanity. Therefore, the surviving humans have no choice but to cooperate to win the war against artificial intelligence.
This threat is incomparably more dangerous than any other military weapon. Nuclear weapons, currently known as the most dangerous military weapons, kill many people directly in the vicinity of the explosion and cause secondary damage from radiation. This damage is limited to the location of the explosion and its vicinity. In fact, Japan, where atomic bombs were dropped, did not collapse as a nation. However, it is clear that this is a major problem for humanity, and in fact, many countries are cooperating to sign a pledge against the use and possession of nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons can already be developed with our current science and technology, so a commitment among countries not to develop them further, and ultimately, the decision not to use nuclear weapons, is a choice made by humans to prevent greater damage. However, advanced AI could become a problem from the moment it is successfully developed. If it can develop its own military power and acquire the intelligence to recognize humanity as its enemy, it will become a problem for everyone, friend and foe alike.
Opposition to the development of military AI is already underway. In July 2015, renowned physicist Stephen Hawking, Tesla founder Elon Musk, and AlphaGo developer Demis Hassabis opposed the development of weapons using AI. The DeepMind technology used in AlphaGo was acquired by Google on the condition that it would not be used for military purposes. The use of AI in military weapons is not only a matter of high-level intelligence, but also, as AlphaGo made mistakes in Go, there is a possibility of serious errors occurring in military decision-making and the use of weapons. Furthermore, it is clear that allowing machines, rather than humans, to decide whether to kill or save human lives will raise ethical issues.
To understand the potential dangers of AI, let’s take a look at the current status and plans for the development of military technology that utilizes AI. As the world’s most powerful military power, the United States is also at the forefront of AI research for military purposes. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), an agency under the Department of Defense established in 1958, began investing in AI research long ago. It has achieved results not only in the military field but also in other fields such as communication technology and voice recognition programs, and the most important technology currently in development is unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). As the name suggests, UAVs are aircraft that can perform missions on their own according to programmed instructions without a human pilot. The US Department of Defense has announced that it will invest $3.6 billion to develop UAVs, which currently have a short flight range and lack stealth technology. Projects such as ALIAS (Aircrew Labor In-Cockpit Automation System), which aims to develop aircraft that can fly autonomously in any situation, and CODE (Collaborative Operations in Denied Environment), which aims to develop unmanned drones that minimize human intervention, have been unveiled. Son Tae-jong, Director of the Information Technology Research Division at the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, said that DARPA is the leading institution in the field of artificial intelligence and that the US has already made significant advances in AI technology.
Military technology includes not only military force but also cybersecurity. In today’s network-dependent world, preventing cyberterrorism is becoming increasingly important, and it is impossible for humans to handle everything on their own. This has led to the development of AI hackers with unlimited computing power, which are expected to bring about major innovations in the field of cybersecurity. DARPA has announced that it will promote the automation of cybersecurity using AI technology within the next 20 years.
Korea is also researching technologies that utilize AI in national defense. Following the development of the first unmanned reconnaissance aircraft, Songgolmae, low- and medium-altitude surveillance and reconnaissance UAVs are currently under development. These aircraft are capable of automatic landing even in bad weather or at night and can accurately identify objects up to 10 km away. AI technology is also being used not only in the air but also at sea. Unmanned surface vehicles responsible for unmanned surveillance, reconnaissance, and mine detection are also being improved. Once the development of multi-mission unmanned surface vehicle technology is complete, it is expected to yield various results, such as surveillance of the Northern Limit Line (NLL) in the West Sea and underwater search missions.
AI technology is also expected to play an active role on land. Vehicle-type robots equipped with detection and search capabilities will enter enemy territory to carry out dangerous missions such as reconnaissance and mine detection. AI technology is also used in defense. The GOP Scientific Guard System, which is a system that detects enemy infiltration and responds accordingly by installing CCTV cameras and optical sensors throughout the GOP barbed wire fence, aims to strengthen the alert system by more accurately distinguishing between enemies and animals.
Not only advanced countries but also Korea is utilizing AI technology in the defense sector to further develop its capabilities. In the short term, AI technology is expected to reduce casualties among friendly forces and cause more effective damage to enemy forces, but as AI technology advances and military technology becomes more dependent on AI, I believe that this double-edged sword will increasingly turn against us. For example, as in movies, robots developed to search for enemy forces could find and kill humans.
When war breaks out, we need to think more carefully about whether it will simply be a robot war utilizing AI technology, or whether robots will cause irreversible damage to humanity. The United Nations and human rights organizations argue that humans must be able to control robots. I believe that all countries need to sign an agreement to this effect. Once robots with ever-evolving lethal capabilities are pointed at humans, it will be too late to turn back.
Next, let’s consider the ethical issues surrounding AI. It sounds simple to say that AI will search for and attack enemies, but it is a difficult issue when you think about it deeply. Let’s imagine a situation where a weapon equipped with artificial intelligence is facing an enemy, and our allies are being held hostage. It is difficult to rescue the hostages and kill the enemy at the same time. What should the artificial intelligence do? Who is responsible for making that decision? These are issues that require deep consideration. There may also be strong opposition to machines, rather than humans, being responsible for life and death. Artificial intelligence cannot learn completely on its own. Even humans learn from others after birth about laws and moral consciousness that are already established, and they internalize ethical ideas commonly held by humans, such as basic human rights. Therefore, artificial intelligence will also be programmed by humans to a certain extent. It is humans who will help artificial intelligence make wise decisions, and this is an issue that humanity must resolve as we develop artificial intelligence technology.
Artificial intelligence is developing rapidly and is therefore the subject of much controversy. Needless to say, the introduction of artificial intelligence into military weapons will cause such problems, and I am opposed to it. It will be necessary to examine how to minimize the problems that will arise in the development of artificial intelligence.
