The Pentagon is building weapons and projects with artificial intelligence capabilities that officials say don't always closely adhere to the agency's own guidelines for AI, according to a congressional watchdog report published in October.AI researchers and international organizations have long advocated for strict regulation of AI when used in weapons that could become unpredictable or function with little human control, arguing that those tools could endanger the lives of soldiers and civilians and risk quickly escalating wars.But Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has repeatedly dismissed previous caution of AI tools and encouraged rapid autonomous innovation at the Pentagon.The Pentagon issued a memo in January saying the department would become "an 'AI-first' warfighting force across all components, from front to back." Last month, Hegseth announced a new warfare command focused on autonomous weapon development, including drones.The watchdog report, published by the U.S.
Government Accountability Office on Oct.14, grants a rare look inside how those kinds of projects are being developed.The GAO surveyed 10 officials involved with building 10 weapons and tools for the Pentagon that use AI to automatically identify targets on the battlefield, process surveillance and improve tactical decision making, and other tasks.
The projects are among more than 300 being built with AI in the Pentagon.When responding to the GAO survey, six of the 10 officials said their teams had "identified risk(s)" with using the projects "in an operational environment."To address some of those sorts of risks, in 2021, the Pentagon sent a memo outlining six basic tenets to ensure that weapons built with AI are created responsibly.Those six guidelines mainly stress the importance of Pentagon-wide oversight, verification and "real-time monitoring" of the technology, and cooperation with allies "to advance global norms grounded in shared values."Alissa Czyz, who directed the GAO review, said t...