Report: Pentagon Working to Use AI to Supplement Defense

The Pentagon's latest research project is working on bridging the gap between a machine that learns from data and one that adds new insights, Defense One reported.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in July launched "Artificial Intelligence Exploration" to develop AI tools that will bring reasoning and contextual awareness to the technology.

"We're seeing huge advances [in AI] that seem kind of amazing, but they tend to overstate the capabilities of the system," John Everett, deputy director of DARPA's Information Innovation Office, told Defense One. "Our systems don't have a sense of the common-sense knowledge we take for granted in the physical world. This is an area that we're very interested in exploring."

DARPA last month announced the first research project under the AIE, which will build an artificial intelligence tool that can automatically generate, test, and refine its own scientific hypotheses, NextGov reported.

If successful, the project would essentially create a scientist from computer code, Defense One noted.

But systems like the "automating scientific knowledge extraction," or ASKE project, would not replace humans — just enhance their work, Valerie Browning, director of DARPA's Defense Sciences Office, told NextGov.

"Right now with machines as tools, they're only going to do what we tell them," Browning said. "It's not reciprocal in terms of suggesting courses of action . . . there's not really a discourse. A part of the grand vision really is machines transitioning from tools to collaborative partners."

• Artificial Intelligence Hedge Fund Said to Fold in Less Than 2 Years
• Prince Charles' Robot Warning: Society's Dependence on AI Worries Royal