The Pentagon is putting billions toward military AI research
DARPA, the US Defense Department’s research arm, will spend $2 billion over the next five years on military AI projects.
Is that a lot? That depends. In the realm of AI research, it’s a huge chunk of change—China, for example, made waves earlier this year when it announced it was putting a similar amount of money behind an AI-focused research park in Beijing. The Pentagon, though, functions on a different scale—$2 billion isn’t quite enough to buy 20 of its shiny new F-35 fighter jets.
The focus: The initiative, announced Friday, is being billed as a way to form better partnerships between machines and humans. DARPA said new projects will focus on things like security clearance vetting, improving the reliability of AI systems, and exploring explainable AI. Notably absent from the press release: any mention of autonomous weapons.
The subtext: The new funding comes in the wake of strong Silicon Valley pushback against working on military AI programs (see “Google won’t renew its military AI contract”). Some researchers are taking the announcement as DARPA saying, in effect, that if Google won’t accept its money, that’s no problem. It’ll find someone else that will.
This article first appeared in The Download, our daily tech newsletter. Sign up here.
Deep Dive
Artificial intelligence
A Roomba recorded a woman on the toilet. How did screenshots end up on Facebook?
Robot vacuum companies say your images are safe, but a sprawling global supply chain for data from our devices creates risk.
The viral AI avatar app Lensa undressed me—without my consent
My avatars were cartoonishly pornified, while my male colleagues got to be astronauts, explorers, and inventors.
Roomba testers feel misled after intimate images ended up on Facebook
An MIT Technology Review investigation recently revealed how images of a minor and a tester on the toilet ended up on social media. iRobot said it had consent to collect this kind of data from inside homes—but participants say otherwise.
How to spot AI-generated text
The internet is increasingly awash with text written by AI software. We need new tools to detect it.
Stay connected
Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review
Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.