ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE ARMS RACE
An artificial intelligence arms race is a competition between two or more states to have its military forces equipped with the best “Artificial intelligence” (AI). Since the mid-2010’s, many analysts have argued that such a global arms race for better artificial intelligence has already begun.
Artificial Intelligence (AI), also dubbed as the Industrial Revolution 4.0, has been making giant strides in scientific and technological innovation across varying fields. It is capable of bringing significant transformations in the way civilian activities and military operations are conducted. Till now, the idea of attaining military superiority was conceivable only to a few countries like the US, China and Russia, who maintain large armed forces. AI, being a dual-use technology, may have interesting implication on the distribution of the military power in the future. The possibility of AI-ushered advancements has opened the scope of an arms race where the conventional military capabilities will matter much less as time progresses. As a result, middle power leading in civilian AI-tech also has the field wide open to compete for hard power. In this light, India is hard-pressed to enter the AI race in defence sooner rather than later. In January 2019, Army Chief Gen. Bipin Rawat was noted to have said , that India will be too late if the armed forces do not embrace AI soon enough.
Artificial intelligence in Indian Army
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) constituted a multistakeholder task force for Strategic Implementation of Artificial Intelligence and Defence in February 2018 that submitted its report in June. The MoD implemented the recommendations by providing an institutional framework for policy implementation, issuing guidelines to the defence organizations, and laying out a vision for capacity-building.
In February 2019, the ministry established a high-level Defence AI Council (DAIC) under the chairmanship of Minister of Defence assigned with the task of providing strategic direction towards the adoption of AI in defence. The DAIC will guide the partnership between the government and industry and also review the recommendations concerning the acquisition of technology and startups. It also envisions the formation of a Defence AI Project Agency (DAIPA) as the central executive body.
The ministry ordered to focus on the capacity building within defence machinery. The tasks range from the knowledge production in the form of data collection, patents etc. to acclimatising the personnel on-duty through internships, training programmes and sabbaticals. Each Service Headquarter (SHQ) will be provided with a window of Rs100 crores for AI specific application developments from the ministerial budgetary allocation. The task force recognised AI as a ‘force multiplier’ and emphasised that all the defence organizations lay down their strategies of AI appropriation.
How far AI is useful in Armed forces
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is becoming a critical part of modern warfare. Compared with conventional systems, military systems equipped with AI are capable of handling larger volumes of data more efficiently. Additionally, AI improves self-control, self-regulation, and self-actuation of combat systems due to its inherent computing and decision-making capabilities.
AI is deployed in almost every military application, and increased research and development funding from military research agencies to develop new and advanced applications of artificial intelligence is projected to drive the increased adoption of AI-driven systems in the military sector.
Conclusion
Not only in technical sectors, but also AI is useful in protection of our nation, as welfare of the nation is one main task for the government. Adding technology to protection would be a more safer way to protect the nation.AI is already used in military and it would be very helpful if more developed systems ,mechanisms come into use. There would also be reduce in human loss and human work, this ensures to go more into AI for arm race.
