Military Not ‘Building Killer Robots in the Basement’: Pentagon Official

The Pentagon is updating a key guideline for how it uses Artificial Intelligence due to misperceptions about its goals, according to one military official. Department of Defense leadership updated its directive, “Autonomy in Weapon Systems,” due to “a lot of confusion” about how the DoD hopes to use AI, said Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Michael Horowitz. Mr. Horowitz said that some ambiguity had led many outside the Pentagon to believe the military was “maybe building killer robots in the basement.” At the same time, some senior Pentagon leaders thought the document prohibited the use of fully autonomous lethal systems. Neither was true, according to Mr. Horowitz, who said that the DoD aims to develop lethal autonomous systems following international law....