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2 September 2024

Special operators hope AI can reduce civilian deaths in combat

PATRICK TUCKER

While much has been said about the danger of allowing AI into military operations in a way that would allow AI to kill people, there has been far less discussion about using AI to make war safer for civilians. But that's what U.S. special operations are starting to look at now, Christopher Maier, the assistant defense secretary for special operations and low-intensity conflict, told reporters Friday.

Part of the reason for this, Maier said, is that preventing civilian harm in a large-scale conflict—such as a potential war with China—would be far more difficult than in the counter-terrorism missions that special forces are engaged in around the globe.

“As we've started to exercise this and build the emphasis on [reducing] civilian harm into large-scale exercises, it becomes particularly daunting when you think of the, if you will, the scale of that type of conflict, where…we've talked openly about thousands of strikes in an hour. This boggles the mind,” he told the Defense Writers Group.

U.S. special operations forces are “going to need the automation and aspects of artificial intelligence and machine learning and all those things that we talk about all the time on the targeting side and the operational side…built in and baked into that with a focus on civilian harm.”


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