Augmented humans in the future of armies, the union between synthetic and biological systems could soon find application in the field of warfare
More than augmented humans, when we think of war applications with the use of Artificial Intelligence, the scenarios are often similar: a humanoid equipped with a super Artificial Intelligence, like Skynet from the film Terminator, who decides to destroy or enslave the human race.
Without wanting to take anything away from James Cameron’s creativity, there is a different future, that of the so-called humans augmented by different software and hardware that will make them more efficient, faster and, in warfare, lethal.
The software world will see the fastest evolutions and applications to augment humans. Consider recent history: the Ukrainian crisis has allowed the world to learn about the many applications of military and civilian drones. The Ukrainian war can be seen as the first of its kind: a field of experimentation where the value of data and processing software can be deployed and perfected to harm the enemy. But if future wars will also be fought with a growing presence of synthetic systems what will be the response of human armies? Augmented humans are the logical evolution. Let’s make the point.
What are augmented and “synthetic” humans
To understand how algorithms (predictive, creative, etc.) can become an integral part of the military machine we have to consider the gaming sector. By game, I’m not referring to the more playful concept that we all imagine. The term game to which I refer is linked to game theories and the whole evolution of strategies that allow the participant of a game to win.
In the Chinese game of Go, for example, the algorithm deployed against the human had calculated an attack approach that included different movements, apparently unrelated to each other. An ability to see the whole that had taken the human adversary by surprise. A similar approach can be observed in the world of chess and poker with software based on artificial intelligence techniques that develop significant attacks by focusing on overview and coordinated strategies.
If we enter the digital gaming world, the scenario becomes even more dynamic: with multiple levels of interaction, the AI plays at its best.
Consider Starcraft, a classic real-time strategy (RTS parlance). Since the game is characterized by a “fog of war”, which hides information from the player, synthetic systems manage to make the most of this information gap that the human faces. The strategy looks the same as observed in Go or chess: multiple, coordinated attacks, with a view of the battlefield that moves different units and deployments in real time. The vision of synthetic systems usually appears very calculated. A factor potentially exploitable by biological systems (i.e. human beings) which, however, must compensate for their lack of real-time computing on different fronts.
Will we have augmented humans?
There are some deficiencies in today’s synthetic systems that could be compensated by biological systems thus moving towards “forms” of augmented humans. An interaction of the two entities could be successful, especially in warfare where reaction times are important.
Let us consider the current shortcomings of synthetic systems.
Systems based on Artificial Intelligence tend not to include human factors such as battle psychology, fear, arrogance in their strategies. In general, all the empathetic-emotional field is not present in the tactics of synthetic systems. This appears natural, since synthetic systems are not life forms that have evolved over time even with instinctive factors necessary to survive and to overcome multiple natural challenges.
If ethics are absent from setting up a theoretical AI, with peace for the much-vaunted three laws of robotics, the lack of human approaches could be a black hole for an exclusively synthetic strategy.
To understand how the two entities can interact and how the idea of having augmented humans can actually materialize, let’s consider a real-life scenario.
A field commander must make decisions based on available (by definition incomplete) information. The “human” side of the commander can decide what is best but processing multiple sources of information and immense amounts of data will be increasingly challenging. If we consider a modern battlefield we must bear in mind that the sources of data are constantly growing: satellite images, detection by tactical drones, sensors and cameras mounted on soldiers in the trenches, radar information, meteorological data, logistics, supplies. To these will be added in the future infrared readers, analysis of the electromagnetic spectrum to intercept cybernetic attacks, etc.
The greater the “physical” synthetics (drones of different nature) operating in the field, the greater the data generated to be processed and exploited. The amount of data will be overwhelming and the time to decide will be increasingly contracted. The deployment of physical synthetics, in fact, will increase the speed of the war engagement by reducing the redundancy times that a human has to decide.
Added to these phenomena are the new strategic weapon systems such as hypersonic missiles, which can halve the travel times towards their objectives. These new vectors will push towards the adoption of solutions and defenses whose use and deployment must be immediate.
All of this data and its urgency leads us to the biological-synthetic synergy and augmented humans.
The ability to make decisions in complex contexts, where the biological is recognized the responsibility of deciding the life or death of other individuals, is still today the exclusive prerogative of humans. AIs are efficient at choosing complex and coordinated strategies, however they still lack the “human” touch that would make them reliable in a non-simulated environment. However, their ability to analyze multiple scenarios in extremely short times, compared to biologicals, makes them an excellent intelligence support that biologicals can use to shorten decision-making times.
The most plausible man-machine integration, in the coming years, in war contexts, comes from this synergy: men will have the burden and honor of making a decision synthetic systems will have the ability to analyze petabytes of scenarios and suggest a plausible set of options that the biological system can evaluate and engage.
The risk
However, there remains a vulnerability of augmented humans and of this synergy which, albeit in a theoretical way at the moment, must be considered. What are the risks associated with a synthetic activity that is, in any way, altered by imperfect programming?
In a recent simulation (an event that took place only virtually) a drone was forced by its programming to eliminate the link that linked it to its human operator. The programming assigned scores for each goal. However no value was placed on the communication tower that linked human and synthetic. In this scenario, the synthetic has decided that removing the constraints that prevented the machine from destroying the target was the best solution to acquire the maximum score. Although this scenario has only been evaluated in the field of simulation, it casts a shadow on the potential synergies between man and machine. The world is moving with increasing speed towards a future where speed will be a vital factor in every scenario, including war. The synthetic entities and their physical effectors will be an excellent tool for compressing times, to the advantage of production efficiency, war efficiency and speed of execution of each single task. But the risks must be weighed very carefully.
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