Artificial intelligence is already on the list of technologies that forever changed the face of war – after gunpowder, the internal combustion engine, aircraft, nuclear weapons, aircraft carriers, etc. AI can give new content to military power. Artificial intelligence is at the center of almost all advances in defense technology. It defines, for example, how the military recruits and trains soldiers, deploys military forces, and finally, how they fight.
AI technologies are present in almost all types of modern weapons. In particular, in high-precision weapons, weapons systems of various bases. In the conditions of modern, hybrid warfare, the focus is on the intellectualization of weapons. The smarter the weapon, the less casualties.
AI technology is becoming applied. In particular, it serves to control manual operations on the video image. Another new technology is based on digital design, machine vision and augmented reality. There are already installations capable of recognizing details, tools and human actions. In case of violation of the technical process, the system does not allow to proceed to the next stage.
Such developments make it possible to reduce the role of the human factor in the performance of manual operations in the production of weapons and military equipment. They are applicable even in the creation of rocket engines.
Many countries use AI to visualize battlefields in real time. They use AI algorithms to analyze large amounts of data from open sources, social networks and coming from the battlefield in order to better organize their attacks.Artificial intelligence and cyber attacks are the new military trend. Face recognition software for identifying enemy soldiers, machine learning (ML) algorithms to improve the efficiency of military and volunteer logistics, intelligence, and information warfare.
The use of neural networks of various functionalities will gain momentum, since AI is already of great importance for society today. No other area of technology today is as heavily funded as AI and ML. National governments and, as a result, their armed forces, as well as big business are interested in the development of neural networks.
The second important point is that cybersecurity has also become a new front in any potential war. As we depend more and more on the Internet, so do the devices that now control operations in almost every area of critical infrastructure. Thus, there are also more targets for hacking. However, cybersecurity is too often relegated to the background. As a result, the Internet of Things, on which we rely more and more, is becoming very vulnerable.
Also very important are unmanned systems capable of stopping columns of enemy tanks and ensuring high accuracy of artillery and missile strikes.
The drone fights that we are already seeing today speak of what conflicts will be in the future and how huge the role of unmanned aerial vehicles will be in them.
In addition, AI allows intelligence based on Open Source Analysis (OSINT).Thus, in our time, competitive advantage in the military-technical field is more determined by software, data, artificial intelligence and the new tactics that they allow to apply than by methods of metal processing and physical processes.
Software has taken over the battlefield, whether the defense industry likes it or not. Autonomous systems, networked weapons, cyberweapons, and more are partly or wholly software-enabled – and new companies must create these programs.
A new generation of software-focused defense companies will be so responsive and continuous to the performance of their software that deployment and iteration will become part of the development process itself.
