One of the most rapidly growing areas of innovative technology adoption involves unmanned systems. The U.S. military's use of these systems -- especially armed unmanned systems -- is not only changing the face of modern warfare, but is also altering the process of decision-making in combat questions. These systems are evolving rapidly to deliver enhanced capability to the warfighter and seemed poised to deliver the next "revolution in military affairs." However, there are increasing concerns regarding the degree of autonomy these systems -- especially armed unmanned systems -- should have. Until these issues are addressed, military unmanned systems may not reach their full potential.
The Department of Defense has evolved a comprehensive Unmanned Systems Integrated Roadmap that forecasts the evolution of military unmanned systems over the next quarter-century. Concurrently, funding for unmanned systems is predicted to rise year-over-year for the foreseeable future. Indeed, as the DoD has rolled out a "Third Offset Strategy" to evolve new operational concepts and technologies to deal with emerging peer competitors, unmanned systems, artificial intelligence and machine learning have emerged as key -- even critical -- compoments of that strategy.
One of the operational and technical challenges of fielding even more capable unmanned systems is the rising cost of military manpower -- one of the fastest growing military accounts -- and the biggest cost driver in the total ownership cost (TOC) of all military systems. Because of this, the U.S. military has sought to increase the automony of unmanned military systems in order to drive down total ownership cost.
As military unmanned systems have become more autonomous, concerns have surfaced regarding a potential "dark side" of having armed unmanned systems make life-or-death decisions. Some of these concerns emerge from popular culture, such as movies like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Her, and Ex Machina. Whether the movies are far-fetched or not isn't the point; what is important is that the ethical concerns regarding employing armed unmanned systems are being raised in national and international media.
While the DoD has issued guidance regarding operator control of autonomous vehicles, rapid advances in artificial intelligence have exacerbated concerns that the military might lose control of armed unmanned systems. The challenge for unmanned systems designers is to provide the military not with completely autonomous systems, but with systems with augmented intelligence that offer the operator enhanced warfighting effectiveness.
The DoD can use the experience of the automotive industry and driverless cars to help shape the degree of autonomy in future unmanned systems. As testing of these vehicles has progressed, and as safety and ethical considerations have emerged, carmakers have tempered their zeal to produce completely autonomous vehicles and have looked to produce cars with augmented intelligence to assist the driver. Harnessing artificial intelligence and machine learning to provide warfighters with unmanned systems with augmented intelligence -- vice fully autonomous systems -- may hold the key to overcoming the ethical concerns that currently limit the potential of military unmanned systems.