[China and the United States are testing AI drone clusters, and AI military uses need to be cautious]
In recent years, the United States and China have accelerated research into how to integrate rapidly evolving artificial intelligence (AI) into their respective militaries. Priorities for both sides include weapons that can find targets without human help, and AI tools to identify targets from satellite imagery.
In a recent test at China's National University of Defense Technology, a swarm of dozens of drones worked together to overcome test jamming signals, according to Chinese state media. After that, the UAV swarm autonomously detected the target and destroyed it in cooperation with the patrol missile.
In contrast, in April, the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia also held a joint exercise to track ground vehicles such as tanks, self-propelled guns and armored vehicles using AI drone swarms. During the exercise, organizers said they retrained drones by transmitting updates to AI targeting programs as they flew.
This is actually a contract opportunity earlier this year for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which coordinates research on emerging technologies for the U.S. military, to offer a "swarm of unmanned aerial vehicles" project, which has the potential to combine air, sea and air AI-guided drone swarms.
A recent study of hundreds of AI-related military procurement records at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., found that about one-third of all known contracts between the United States and China were for smart and autonomous vehicles during the eight-month period of 2020, the largest share in either country.
Knock on the blackboard: In the Russian-Ukrainian battlefield, there is one thing that it is not an exaggeration to say that it has changed the rules of the battlefield, and that is drones. The Russian-Ukrainian battlefield became one of the first real-world testing grounds for AI-powered drone technology.
AI operates drones to automatically ask for enemies, confirm targets, and kill in complex battlefields. This system composed of drones combined with AI technology is also called the drone "swarm" system, a technology that both China and the United States are working on.
In the future, the militarization of AI technology will be a new track for the Sino-US military race. But the question is whether AI will be a threat in itself when it is militarized, just as in June this year, the US drone chose to kill the operators who hindered its mission in order to complete the set target, and hoped that China and the United States, including other military powers, would also focus on research and prevention in this regard.
