Alok Mehta

Thanks for having me.

I'm happy to be here.

I think over time, we've seen an evolution in the use of AI on autonomy in the battlefield.

So if you look at what is happening in Ukraine and Russia, we've seen lots of pioneering uses of AI in that war.

And now in Iran, we're seeing more of an evolution

You think about it in terms of what the US is capable of, the best examples we have, we've seen some previews from Palantir of how the Maven smart system might work.

And so we're seeing that they've incorporated new generative AI technology into that system.

And so the operations we're seeing in Iran by the US military are incorporating new

generative AI tools, I think, in the first instance where that's happening for the U.S.

military and sort of an actual hot battlefield situation.

AI is primarily being used to the best of our understanding as sort of a tool that helps with integration of various types of information streams.

So you can think of AI tools as helping to bring together and synthesize lots of data from things like satellite imagery, troop telemetry, bring it together into an interface where then operators are able to sort of query the system and help with things like

conducting intelligence operations, finding gaps in intelligence, and finding various operational strategies to remedy intelligence gaps, brainstorming operational plans, and then sort of coming up with strategic options for dealing with various battlefield situations.

then you are able to use AI to sort of task drones with humans sort of involved in making decisions about where those attacks will happen, what kinds of targets are being struck.

But right now, most of the use of AI is really in helping people in the military manage the enormous amount of information that's coming across their desks and be able to interface with that information using a more naturalistic type of way of interacting with it.

So the U.S.

military has a directive that oversees or provides guidance on how it's able to use autonomy in military systems.

And this directive, DOD Directive 3000.09, lays out some of the ways that

is appropriate and not appropriate for the military to use autonomous systems essentially.

And the key text here is that it requires an appropriate level of human judgment in decisions, especially decisions that have high consequences like use of lethal force on the battlefield.