Given the two-year break from sequestration, the Pentagon is hurrying up to hire civilians to push the modernization of the force to head off advances by China and Russia, a new DoD strategy document says.

The Pentagon is moving out quickly amid worries that China has outpaced U.S. capabilities in hypersonic weapons development.

WASHINGTON: No lives were on the line. It wasn’t lofting a billion dollar spy satellite. But the SpaceX Falcon Heavy test launch demonstrated today that the world’s largest rocket system worked largely as planned. And, as one observer noted, the entire system was built for commercial reasons alone; no government agency crafted a requirement saying… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: When former Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work heard the head of Google’s parent company, Eric Schmidt, say this morning that America needs a national strategy for developing Artificial Intelligence, one image sprang to his mind’s eye. “The image that popped into my mind was of Nikita Khrushchev banging his shoe in the UN and… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: When a computer system defeated one of the greatest masters of the complex game known as Go last year, the world gasped. Experts had said months before that such an event would not occur in their lifetimes. Last night, the magazine Nature published an article by DeepMind, the Google company behind that breakthrough, claiming… Keep reading →

Artificial intelligence, machine learning and autonomy are central to the future of American war. In particular, the Pentagon wants to develop software that can absorb more information from more sources than a human can, analyze it and either advise the human how to respond or — in high-speed situations like cyber warfare and missile defense — act on… Keep reading →

Thinking about robots and war often brings to mind HAL, the apparently well-meaning but ultimately destructive computer in 2001, or the metallic creatures of death in the Terminator series. Today, however, the Pentagon wants to push the concept in a different direction. With advanced adversaries like Russia and China copying the smart weapons, stealth fighters, and… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Should the United States build physical and cyber Terminators, weapons that do not have a human in the loop? The unequivocal answer from the prestigious Defense Science Board is yes. “This study concluded that DoD must accelerate its exploitation of autonomy—both to realize the potential military value and to remain ahead of adversaries who also… Keep reading →

In an intriguing paper certain to catch the eye of senior Pentagon officials, a company claims that an artificial intelligence program it designed allowed drones to repeatedly and convincingly “defeat” a human pilot in simulations in a test done with the Air Force Research Lab (AFRL). A highly experienced former Air Force battle manager, Gene Lee, tried repeatedly… Keep reading →

Times are hard for the United States Army. It has experienced a budget decline of almost 50 percent in constant dollars since 2008 as a result of the combined effects of the drawdown of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the caps established in the Budget Control Act of 2011. Army force structure is… Keep reading →