Pentagon to let AI help direct military ops and planning
The American military has signed a deal with Scale AI to give artificial intelligence, as far as we can tell, its most prominent role in the Western defense sector to date – with AI agents to now be used in planning and operations.
The value of the contract, awarded as part of the US Defense Innovation Unit”s Thunderforge project, wasn”t specified, though given its considerable scope it”s likely to be a large one. According to data labeling and AI training outfit Scale today, the contract will see it leading a team including Palmer Luckey”s Anduril and Copilot-obsessed Microsoft to implement the US Department of Defense”s “first foray into integrating AI agents in and across military workflows.”
According to the DIU”s Thunderforge project leader Bryce Goodman, transforming military decisionmaking with AI is something that”s pivotal to sustaining US military dominance.
“Today”s military planning processes rely on decades-old technology and methodologies, creating a fundamental mismatch between the speed of modern warfare and our ability to respond,” Goodman said. “Thunderforge brings AI-powered analysis and automation to operational and strategic planning, allowing decision-makers to operate at the pace required for emerging conflicts.”
The end goal of the project, the DIU said, is to help military decision-makers pore over and assess more info more quickly and make judgement calls more rapidly based on AI suggestions. Thunderforge AI will be used to support mission planning and campaign development, help allocate resources at the theater level, and make strategic assessments. We”re given the strong impression humans make all the final decisions, albeit ones guided by software.
The AI agents – a fancy word for bot – can carry out table-top war-gaming to simulate outcomes for leaders, plan scenarios, “and refine proposed courses of action,” the DIU said.
Source: Marzieh Rahmani