Disruptive Technologies in extreme automation impacting beyond 2040 II

Battlefield robots

PROBOT, a robot used for hauling supplies. The US Army is using a number of these vehicles, he said. Photo Credit: U.S. Army photo by David Vergun

Technology in the military field has been on the leading edge in the last two centuries, benefitting from huge investment. It has also created significant fall out in non military applications.

Artificial Intelligence and robotics (tied together ever more) are seeing significant investment by the military, all around the world, although it is difficult to pinpoint the real status achieved. Fighter planes, although manned, are becoming more and more autonomous, drones are being remotely controlled but are also becoming more and more autonomous in flight operation and decision taking. Soldiers are getting more and more sophisticated equipment, including robotic exoskeletons, that are clearly showing the way towards robotic soldiers.

The deployment of robots has the capacity of extending by an order of magnitude (10 fold) the battlefield control.

All companies operating in the defence area are working on more and more advanced robots transforming the concept of battlefield. Some, like QinetiQ, are also voicing the need for an overall reconsideration of rules as robotics and artificial intelligence are no longer fitting the current internationally agreed rules.

This is a more general issue affecting all autonomous systems: Who is responsible for their behaviour, given that they are … autonomous? This is an issue being addressed by the Symbiotic Autonomous Systems Initiative of the IEEE FDC.

An interesting white paper has been recently released by the US Army Research laboratory explaining the Internet of Intelligent Battle Things!  It is worth reading.

This is an area where we are already well advanced and where disruptions are already occurring. It is reasonable to expect that by 2040 wars will be fought in a completely different way. Someone is claiming that most of the wars will no longer involve a physical battlefield, they will be fought in cyberspace.

Don’t underestimate the casualties however! Bits may turn out to be deadlier than bullets. In 20 years time we will be living in symbiosis with bits, with our and other’s digital twins. We will have sensors and actuators on our body and in our homes. Malicious hacking  on these may have deadly consequences.

Economy is already running on bits. A disruption in the daily flow of bits can be devastating.

In the end, even though there will be killer drones using AI to take autonomous decisions, and robotic soldiers fighting with one another, most of the damage and casualties may come from cyberattacks.

It is an uncharted territory we are entering, we better take notice now.

AI board members & politicians

Analyses of social media pointing out the relations among various politica/social issues as seen by voters in the US. Credit: using social network analyses in politics. Prof. Tunnard

Battles, of a different sort, are also fought in companies and in Countries, within Board meetings and parliamentary halls. Here, as well, the Imperial College Foresight study foresees dramatic changes fostered by Artificial Intelligence, being used to evaluate impact of decisions, define strategies and take action.

Political elections are already today flanked by “experts” using AI to analyse data harvested from social media to pinpoint people’s mood and to craft the right message that can swing public opinion in a desired direction.

Analyses of social media can provide accurate forecast on voting outcome, this is now moving to a new level to assess how those votes can be changed through focussed campaign. In the end it is again a matter of money and resources. The point is to identify the areas that with a minimal investment can be conditioned to change their vote.

Of course, every political party, vested investor, is trying to do exactly that in a never ending pursue of winning the game.

There are companies specialising in the application of artificial intelligence, like Deep Knowledge Ventures, that are providing services to assess people’s mood, others, like Tieto, developing software to support the companies Boards to take decisions.

In the coming decades we can expect artificial intelligence to get better, not because of better algorithms or chips, but because there will be more data to access and analyse including historical data supporting machine learning. In other words AI is bound to become smarter and smarter and in an area like this where there is a deluge of data it clearly has an edge on human analyses.

Ethical, Legal and Societal issues are at the forefront of these kinds of applications. There is no doubt that Boards and Parties will keep making use of AI and that will change the rule of the game. Mind you. Politics and struggles at Board level have always been a matter of analysing information and finding ways to twist moods one way or another. What is new is that we are losing control on both analysis and twisting, relying on AI.

About Roberto Saracco

Roberto Saracco fell in love with technology and its implications long time ago. His background is in math and computer science. Until April 2017 he led the EIT Digital Italian Node and then was head of the Industrial Doctoral School of EIT Digital up to September 2018. Previously, up to December 2011 he was the Director of the Telecom Italia Future Centre in Venice, looking at the interplay of technology evolution, economics and society. At the turn of the century he led a World Bank-Infodev project to stimulate entrepreneurship in Latin America. He is a senior member of IEEE where he leads the New Initiative Committee and co-chairs the Digital Reality Initiative. He is a member of the IEEE in 2050 Ad Hoc Committee. He teaches a Master course on Technology Forecasting and Market impact at the University of Trento. He has published over 100 papers in journals and magazines and 14 books.