AI warfare

AI warfare refers to the use of artificial intelligence technologies to enhance, automate, or replace human decision-making and operations in armed conflicts. AI is used to speed up military intelligence analysis of large volumes of data. AI military tools make recommendations on what to target. Due to its autonomous nature, AI could rapidly increase the tempo of operations, especially if more than one side is relying on AI. AI warfare raises the fundamental question of whether humans or machines decide when lethal force is used. The U.S. has declared it will become an 'AI-first' warfighting force. Abdul-Rahman al-Rawi, a 20-year-old student, is the first civilian killed in airstrikes carried out with AI assistance in a US strike in Iraq in 2024.

2026 Iran war

The 2026 Iran war has been described as the "first AI war", although the U.S. and Israel have previously used AI to identify targets during the Gaza war. The United States has used AI tools to attack Iran. These tools have been used for military intelligence, targeting, and damage assessment in the war in Iran. Using the Maven smart system, the U.S. attacked 1000 targets in the first 24 hours of the war and 5000 targets over the course of 10 days. While the U.S. had used Maven in 2022 to share targeting information with Ukraine and strike against Iraq, Syria, and against the Houthis in 2024, Iran's attacks are its biggest. The United States Central Command emphasizes that humans make final decisions on what to shoot. == Involved companies ==

Involved companies

While Maven Smart System is developed by Palantir, it also integrates Anthropic’s Claude AI "to analyse surveillance data, create targeting lists and enable target-prioritisiation", and uses Amazon's AWS servers as its cloud infrastructure. == Involved state actors ==

Involved state actors

The United States Department of Defense has 800+ active AI-related projects and requested $1.8bn in AI funding for 2024 alone, with Project Maven and Project Artemis (AI-resistant drones developed together with Ukraine) being the main ones. The technology has been used in Iran, Iraq, Syria and Yemen to identify targets. They were both developed by Unit 8200. China is pursuing intelligentized warfare, integrating AI across all combat domains — land, sea, air, space, and cyber — with military AI spending exceeding $1.6bn annually. == International regulation ==

International regulation

One important area of AI warfare concerns international efforts to regulate lethal autonomous weapon systems. Since 2014, states meeting within the framework of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons have discussed lethal autonomous weapon systems. In 2016, the treaty's states parties established an open-ended Group of Governmental Experts on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems to continue those discussions. The discussions have addressed international humanitarian law, accountability, possible prohibitions and regulations, and the extent of human control required over AI-enabled weapons. == See also ==

Source: Wikipedia ↗

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