AI is playing a big role in the US-led war in Iran
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What was the initial incident that sparked the discussion about AI in warfare?
One of the earliest headlines in the U.S.-led war in Iran involved the bombing of a girls' primary school in Minab. Between 175 and 180 people were killed in the attack, most of them young girls. Meanwhile, adjacent to the school was a military compound of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Was AI to blame? Hello and welcome to USA Today's The Excerpt. I'm Dana Taylor. Today is Monday, March 30th, 2026.
How is AI being deployed in the US-led war in Iran?
The U.S.-led war in Iran is the first global conflict where AI is playing a major role both on the literal battlefield and on social media where the battle for hearts and minds is playing out. Are we entering a dangerous new evolution of warfare with AI? We're going to dig into all of it with two experts today. Joining me to discuss the nascent use of AI on the battlefields of Operation Epic Fury is Alok Mehta, Director of the Wadwani AI Center for CSIS, the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Thanks so much for joining me on the excerpt, Alok.
What distinguishes the use of AI in the Iran conflict from previous wars?
Thanks for having me. I'm happy to be here.
At what point in the military kill chain is AI being utilized?
Start us out, if you would, with a 30,000-foot view of how AI is being deployed in the US-led war in Iran. What makes this conflict so different with regards to AI?
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.
What ethical considerations arise from using AI in military operations?
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.
There's an old terminology that I want to bring in here, and that's the kill chain, a chain of events that starts with identifying a target and ends with an attack. At what strategic point in the kill chain is AI being used?
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.
Look, what guardrails are there for ensuring that a target is a legitimate military one and not, say, a girls' school, as happened on day one of the conflict?
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.
How is generative AI impacting the narrative of the war on social media?
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. And so what is happening is that the military almost certainly has human oversight over selection and actual execution of military strikes on targets.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What was the initial incident that sparked the discussion about AI in warfare?
0:05–0:35
2
How is AI being deployed in the US-led war in Iran?
0:35–1:14
3
What distinguishes the use of AI in the Iran conflict from previous wars?
1:14–1:16
4
At what point in the military kill chain is AI being utilized?
1:16–2:02
5
What ethical considerations arise from using AI in military operations?
2:02–4:23
6
How is generative AI impacting the narrative of the war on social media?
4:23–5:26
7
What are the dangers of AI-generated content in shaping public perception?
5:26–6:23
8
How does misinformation from AI-generated imagery affect trust in media?
6:23–21:03
Speakers
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