According to former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, AI technology is transforming warfare and the US military needs an overhaul to keep up.
In a lengthy article in Foreign Affairs, Schmidt and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark A. Milley outlined the future of global warfare — which is already playing out on several battlefields around the world.
With AI technology, soldiers in Ukraine are “destroying tanks and shooting down planes with devastating efficiency,” they wrote. In Myanmar and Sudan, insurgents and the government rely on algorithms to fight. And in Gaza, Israel has drones using AI.
“Future wars will no longer be about who can amass the most men or use the best planes, ships and tanks,” they wrote. “Instead, they will be dominated by increasingly autonomous weapon systems and powerful algorithms.”
Yet the United States, which remains the world’s most powerful military, has not kept pace with innovation, Schmidt and Milley write. It hasn’t “embraced AI,” and the Pentagon doesn’t seem to be moving fast enough to change. In short, the military needs a “system overhaul” because “robots and AI are here to stay.”
Schmidt is now leading that task with a new company called White Stork. The company is working to mass-produce drones that can use AI to identify targets to reduce the human cost of global warfare.
Schmidt previously chaired the National Security Committee on Artificial Intelligence for several years and was CEO of Google from 2001 to 2011.
During a recent talk at Stanford University, Schmidt said the war in Ukraine inspired him to enter the defense industry, adding that he is now a “licensed arms dealer.”
“Because of the way the system works, I’m now a licensed gun dealer,” Schmidt said. “Computer scientist, businessman, arms dealer.”