There's an oft-repeated saying, when discussing past and future conflict, that while the Great War was the war of chemists, the Second World War was the war of physicists, that any third world war will be the war of biologists. While that's likely true (and horrifying), any such future conflict will also be a war of computer programmers, with decisions in and around the battlespace made in microseconds by advanced AI. The United States' geopolitical adversaries are looking into advanced AI to help fight future wars, and it's in America's interest to do likewise. We have to understand this new technology to make use of it, and more, how to counter it.
To that end, the War Department has inked deals with several major tech firms to look into that very prospect.
The Pentagon said Friday that it has reached deals with seven tech companies to use their artificial intelligence in its classified computer networks, allowing the military to tap into AI-powered capabilities to help it fight wars.
Google, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, Nvidia, OpenAI, Reflection and SpaceX will provide their resources to help “augment warfighter decision-making in complex operational environments,” the Defense Department said.
Notably absent from the list is AI company Anthropic, after its public dispute and legal fight with the Trump administration over the ethics and safety of AI usage in war.
There are, of course, pros and cons to all this:
The technology can help the military reduce the time it takes to identify and strike targets on the battlefield, while aiding in the organization of weapons maintenance and supply lines, according to a report in March from the Brennan Center for Justice.
But AI has already raised concerns that its use could invade Americans’ privacy or allow machines to choose targets on the battlefield. One of the companies contracting with the Pentagon said its agreement required human oversight in certain situations.
Those are legitimate concerns, but the reality of modern warfare dictates that the United States, at a minimum, be aware of the capabilities of AI-enhanced systems and how to counter them. This is part of any future war, and as with any new technology, from the atlatl to AI, it's in any possible combatant's interests to understand the capabilities of that new technology and how to counter it.
Read More: The Pentagon Blacklisted Anthropic. Federal Agencies Are Using It Anyway
Pentagon Blacklists US AI Firm Anthropic and Court Refuses to Stop It
A new report now indicates that the Pentagon has added Oracle to the list of tech companies it's dealing with.
The Pentagon announced this morning that it has made agreements with eight leading tech firms to deploy their AIs on its classified networks.
An initial press release sent out this morning listed seven firms: Amazon Web Services, Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, SpaceX, NVIDIA and Reflection, a newer startup backed by NVIDIA. Later today, the Pentagon CTO’s office posted on X that “Oracle has officially agreed to join the list of AI companies deploying frontier capabilities on the Department’s classified networks.”
The question is, how do humans assert full control over an AI system that makes decisions in microseconds? Human reaction times are glacial compared to an AI's. Will the AI's target-acquisition decisions be subject to human approval? If AI is used in any target-acquisition process, how will the target-acquisition software be validated to ensure that only legitimate targets are selected? This is something that no new military technology has required before.
On Friday, the War Department issued a press release about the contracts with the tech giants. You can view that press release here. The release says in part:
Integrating secure frontier AI capabilities into the Department's Impact Level 6 (IL6) and Impact Level 7 (IL7) network environments will streamline data synthesis, elevate situational understanding, and augment warfighter decision-making in complex operational environments. SpaceX, OpenAI, Google, NVIDIA, Reflection, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, and Oracle will provide resources to deploy their capabilities on both IL6 and IL7 environments. This effort supports the Department's AI Acceleration Strategy by enabling new capabilities across its three core tenets of warfighting, intelligence, and enterprise operations.
That doesn't give a lot of detail on how any future AI will be integrated into military systems. A lot of that, likely, hasn't been worked out yet.
We are in uncharted waters, militarily, with the advent of AI. But that genie isn't going back in the bottle, and anyone who thinks that Moscow and Beijing aren't looking into using AI in military operations, intelligence-gathering, and more, well, they're kidding themselves.
Editor’s Note: Thanks to President Trump and his administration’s bold leadership, we are respected on the world stage, and our enemies are being put on notice.
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