Artificial Intelligence as Conflict Resolution Proxy
Modern Warfare Re-imagined
It’s crazy to think how AI has shifted our world. I am a huge proponent of AGI & ASI. I do have some concerns regarding Artificial Intelligence but the benefits far outweigh anything ever imagined.
Since we are at the point of no-return for AGI now, it’s good to imagine what the modern warfare would look like. I'm not interested in self-serving posturing, superficial public displays, or agendas driven by special interests and covert conflicts. I am more interested in how AI will be incorporated as a separate division of Military. I can’t tell the future of any country that is unable to do that. One thing to me is super clear that you do not need an actual reason to invade a country. You need a reason that is believable. Tale as old as time itself. You need populist appeal to start a war, not legitimate grounds. Anyone who thinks otherwise is a naive idiot. Wars are not started in the name of righteousness. Wars are started for control of resources, territorial expansion and special interests. And in the Western civilization, it’s important to posture as Democracy being the only solution. So, 10 points to democracy from my side as well. The theater is amusing to me. But Democracy != Meritocracy. I find it surprising sometimes that Elon Musk who is a strong advocate of both Democracy and Meritocracy cannot understand the difference between the two. Democracy is populist appeal, it is not meritocracy. Spending hundreds of millions would have made him understand that. Or maybe his public posturing is also way different than his actual ‘self’. As Bezos once said that you cannot know someone by their public persona. I am starting to believe that it’s true.
Anyway, there’s so many military programs around the world to help incorporate Artificial Intelligence into existing weapon’s systems. And even create new Autonomous Weapons Systems, Autonomous Cyber-Warfare Systems, Psychological and Social Engineering Operations, Swarm Intelligence. Some popular use cases are using AI for fighter jets, guidance systems and interceptors, drones and even androids/bots. Human life by default has a higher precedence than a Neural Network that’s entrapped in a clunky metal suit. Until when? There are certainly many other use cases as well. But the inevitability is that AI will become a division of Military on its own. That’s not very far away but I’m more interested in the AlphaGo moment.
The famous AlphaGo moment in 2016, when people realized that even the best of humanity was no match for the cognitive ability of a machine in a closed environment. What most people don't realize is that a battle field is essentially a closed environment and so is war. What happens next?
People will wake up and realize that AI doesn’t need to be limited to only a handful of weapons and co-pilot. AI will be the ultimate War General with unparalleled accuracy. Human warfare tactics are just not a match for what AI is capable of. Predictably, each country will have its own version of Militarized Artificial Intelligence. Wars are very soon going to be about algorithmic supremacy rather than just pure power. One country’s military algorithm fighting another’s! Not just on the battle field but controlling the battle field and strategies, deployment of tactics to achieve end goals. Will a nation’s AI act independently within boundaries? What happens when the AI disagrees with its human commanders? Will AI eventually become the de-facto arbiter of military strategy, with humans simply approving or overriding? I think commanders will just end up signing on strategy the way today’s CEOs sign letters written by LLMs.
When that happens, I would be excited to bring back the idea of single combat. Let countries’ AI algorithms fight in a simulated environment with the given resources, prevent the loss of all human life and accept the outcome. In a simulated vector space, will countries accept the outcome of the digitized battle space? AI will collapse the chaos advantage of asymmetric warfare. War will return to symmetry, algorithm vs algorithm, with no room for improvisation or luck. As Napoleon famously said once ‘I'd rather have lucky generals than good ones’. When wars are simulations, and generals are silicon, the last frontier of conflict will be reality itself, which version of the future will we choose to believe? I am pragmatic and a hopeless romantic for technological advancement. I know the future I believe in. But in a World where wars are no longer fought by men but by minds, what then is peace? Maybe a United Nations of algorithms will be less cuckolded by might than the United Nations of today.