
The U.S. military, algorithmic warfare, and big tech - el_programmador
https://venturebeat.com/2019/11/08/the-u-s-military-algorithmic-warfare-and-big-tech/
======
naringas
>“We are going to be shocked by the speed, the chaos, the bloodiness, and the
friction of a future fight in which this will be playing out,

I think this article's focus is way off

It's more plausible that algorithmic warfare is going to make us unsure as to
what is even happening. We are going to be lost, drowned, in conflicting
plausible information to the point we won't even know what is going in nor who
to believe

~~~
bane
I agree with you. Since WW2, the trend in military weaponry and intelligence
is precision.

\- Instead of blowing up a submarine, why not disable the one critical crew
member needed for it to launch?

\- Instead of leveling a city to stop arms production, why not just infect the
control systems of the factories so only plows can be manufactured and not
swords?

\- Cause a single screw to fall out of a piece of artillery so that it can no
longer fire on target?

\- Better yet, cause a fire in the iron mine so that gun can't even be
manufactured.

To be effective, the affected parties wouldn't even know they were being
targeted. They wouldn't even know they were at war. The lowest friction
conduit your enemy civilization can proceed on is the one you want them to,
and over time that's the one they'll inevitably settle into after becoming
frustrated with their inability to make meaningful war on you.

In a perfect scenario, you might not even know you're attacking them either.

The series "The Golden Oecumene" explores this concept. In the story, the
entire world's military might has reduced to a single sophisticated computer
A.I. and a single man, who is usually cryogenically frozen and only brought
out under extreme circumstances for specific operations that might include
severing a single synaptic connection in a target using an x-ray laser
stationed in orbit -- in order to change the target's mind.

~~~
dogma1138
This only works during a “Cold War” one of the goals of intelligence is to
prevent war by either maintaining your balance or superiority over your
enemies and once a war breaks out provide intelligence that would grant you an
advantage on the battle field.

However if a full scale war ever breaks down it will definitely regress back
to leveling whole cities fairly quickly because in the end of the day it’s the
only way to beat an enemy.

If the enemy could not sustain low levels of attrition even if key individuals
they likely wouldn’t engage in a war in the first place.

However people over estimate how much intelligence should be credited to
stopping all out war vs the economics of the connected world even during the
Cold War.

Trade stops wars, hence why all recent wars have been civil in nature or ones
against isolated actors of little to no economic importance on a global scale.

While a war with China might break out under extreme circumstances it’s highly
unlikely when the US public relies on it for anything from their tooth brushes
to their iPhones.

War with Russia is also extremely unlikely since half of Europe would freeze
to death, they don’t need to nuke Berlin, as shutting off the gas supply would
be nearly as devastating.

Russia’s reliance on natural gas to fuel not only their economy but also their
geopolitical capita is also why it reacts so aggressively against European
incursion eastward that could threaten their monopoly on LPG.

What Russia fears more than 500,000 NATO troops on its border is a Royal Dutch
Shell pipeline going form the Caspian Sea through the Black Sea into Europe.

So while space death rays might seem to be effective they aren’t really not
are they necessary today to actually prevent conflict between the big players.

With all the death rays in the world unless you’ll be willing to kill off the
entire population of your enemies as long as they have enough peasants and
rifles they can wage an effective war.

For China to effectively conquer a country they only need enough guns as nukes
aside even the US might not have enough conventional weapons to deal with
China if they’ll go bat shit crazy and issue a gun, an inflatable raft and a
parka to every able man and woman of military age and tell them to march north
west till the reach Alaska then start marching south.

~~~
codeisawesome
What a ridiculous scenario - such a gigantic force marching on foot at human
speed would not only die in huge numbers of exposure, law and order / supply
chain breakdown - they would also be a perfectly amassed easy-pickings for
slaughter via air bombing.

------
gumby
War, as in pitched battles on a field, has been going away for a long time.
Perpetual war, unfortunately, is back.

If you believe Clauzewitz's dictum that "war is diplomacy by any other means"
then than disinformation, continual, slow, background degradation of the
infrastructure of perceived enemies and the like will become the standard mode
of large nation states, with actual shooting being the guerrilla/terrorist
activity of those who can't afford the electronic ops. Something that also has
been the nature of the world since forever (David/Goliath, US revolution, WWII
partisans, Al Qaida....any so many in between).

And BTW once you have this capability wouldn't you use it internally to
"ensure domestic tranquility"?

Once again The Sheep Look Up and Stand on Zanzibar are highly predictive.

~~~
emilfihlman
War is a special case of competition, ie competition through violence, violent
competition of nations or large body actors.

But calling perpetual competition war because is questionable. We have always
been influencing each other. It's not war.

~~~
gumby
I specifically don't mean perpetual "competition" so thanks for flagging that
I was not clear.

I consider competition to be not just commercial competition, colonial (ugh)
competition, spying and the like. Spying in fact can avert war (well
understood in game theory, hence the overflight treaties).

But when spend time specifically probing and actually attacking, say, your
perceived opponents' infrastructure (e.g. "cyberattack" of another country's
electronic grid) I consider that warfare. Student was unambiguously an act of
war, though Iran was too weak to respond (also: clever!). In particular Iran
posed no threat to the US, but attacking its nuclear capabilities served US
geopolitical interests (Iran _did_ and does threaten US allies).

If you destroy or degrade someone's capabilities remotely instead of sending a
high explosive, do you not consider that perpetual war? _Developing_ such
capabilities is not, inherently, war, nor is probing for weaknesses.

But if the US considers Russia an adversary (a small economy, large land and
population next to various allies) I can see how someone could consider it
reasonable to make it harder for its government to function. I disagree, and
do consider it warfare.

------
RcouF1uZ4gsC
One of the big areas where AI will have a huge impact in warfare is logistics.
When fighting in hostile territory (which pretty much all US wars have been
since the Civil War), one of the most vulnerable parts is the supply train.
Having to devote humans to drive the supplies and guard the supplies is
expensive and risk prone.

Instead, I imagine that supplies will be brought to the front lines via self-
driving vehicles watched over by armed drones that are programmed to destroy
anything that tries to interfere with the supply convoy.

Just doing that one thing will have huge implications for the way wars are
fought the the costs associated with the wars.

~~~
KineticLensman
> Instead, I imagine that supplies will be brought to the front lines via
> self-driving vehicles watched over by armed drones that are programmed to
> destroy anything that tries to interfere with the supply convoy.

You only need to wreck the lead vehicle in a convoy to stop those behind
making any progress. A high-tech adversary could do this by a deep precision
strike, and a low-tech enemy could simply emplace some mines or IEDs (remotely
triggered).

------
bransonf
Human motivations truly are something strange.

We discovered and innovated heavily on amazing pieces of technology
(Computers, Web, Phones, Efficient Algorithms). And seemingly, the two
foremost use cases have become to captivate people’s attention to sell them
ads, and to threaten the lives of people we disagree with ideologically. (War,
mass surveillance) Just look at what China has done to the Uighurs.

I often worry about the direction we’re heading. While it is undeniable that
fewer people are dying due to war, maybe we’re just moving the agony
elsewhere.

For every startup that begins with the ambition to make money, there lack in
startups that actually aim to address a problem. Yet, somehow we manage to
convince ourselves that food delivery, ride sharing, or scooters are somehow
going to fix our most primal issues.

~~~
moltensodium
I have never met a startup founder that wanted to address a problem or improve
the world. Instead they all want to make sure that the Series A investors are
happy. Nothing else really matters besides doing whatever the investors think
will make number go up.

One time I almost got involved with a person who truly wanted to improve the
world, but didn't get the job.

Outside of that one person I almost met 15 years ago, literally every founder
in tech I've interacted with is just trying to run the ponzi scheme and get to
that exit event, consequences be damned, employees be damned, profit be
damned.

Maybe there are some good people in tech, but I still haven't met them after a
whole career in this industry. Just a lot of people who make number go up like
they're told to.

*edit I think this comment will be very poorly received and downvoted to -100000 karma, but honestly typing it out has made me realize I just fucking hate this industry with every fiber of my being. Every new platform and channel and tool gets completely subverted by ever more intrusive and personalized advertising, and the total data surveillance ecosystem of the big tech giants ensures that they will be able to kill or consume any truly good business idea before it gets off the ground. I think I'm done. Fuck tech. Fuck computers. What a waste of a career.

~~~
shantly
> Fuck tech. Fuck computers. What a waste of a career.

I'm coming around to a the-medium-is-the-message / technological-determinism
perspective on the Internet, that it _cannot_ exist as anything like the way
it is now and _mostly_ be a force for good. Just can't.

Always on ubiquitous wireless Internet. Decent battery tech so you don't need
a power cable to everything. Low-powered cheap computers and sensors (cameras,
microphones, those creepy human-body radars Google's about to start putting in
phones). Storage so cheap you can collect everything. Algorithms to sift
through it.

I don't see any possible way for all those things to exist and for the results
not to be, overall, disastrous.

I also see exactly no way to stop it.

~~~
homonculus1
I'm "opesstimistic" about it. I think the average person is simply too stupid
to foresee the problems. It takes a broader view to see the parallels with
history and how these technologies can (likely will) lead to abhorrent abuse.
I don't mean to be arrogant but I think the average person lacks the mental
depth to look past the immediate convenience or to be skeptical of the glitzy
sales pitch.

Stallman, Snowden, the EFF, and the rest of us are Cassandras. People just
don't give a shit. Let alone the future, people are still trying to roll back
protections we got in the 18th Century. There just isn't going to be a public
consciousness of how we need to limit power from using tech that was invented
a decade ago, no matter how many articles or blog posts those weird nerds
write about their tinfoil paranoia.

I think we're just doomed to suffer the consequences again and learn from the
suffering. It will be hell on earth for a lot of people but the light at the
end of the tunnel is that tyranny is an objectively inferior mode of
organization, and it always has to collapse eventually.

------
freeflight
It's kind of weird how the US DoD complains about lack of computation power
and has to ask the private sector for help, while the NSA [0] apparently has
no problem running their own AI program.

Imho way more interesting and relevant than those somewhat far-flung future
concepts about fully autonomous warfare.

[0] [https://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2016/02/the-n...](https://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2016/02/the-nsas-skynet-program-may-be-killing-thousands-of-
innocent-people/)

------
remarkEon
>“We are going to be shocked by the speed, the chaos, the bloodiness, and the
friction of a future fight in which this will be playing out, maybe in
microseconds at times. How do we envision that fight happening? It has to be
algorithm against algorithm,” Shanahan said during a conversation with former
Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Google VP of global affairs Kent Walker.

So, _A Taste of Armageddon_ [1]?

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Taste_of_Armageddon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Taste_of_Armageddon)

------
carapace
What about the idea that technology can bring about a post-historical techno-
utopia where war would be obsolete?

I mean, technology is a general amplifier, we should choose what to amplify.

------
ganzuul
This will also push the front-line of war back in time, because democracy is
vulnerable to psy-ops.

For example, there is a lot of hatred brewing against the Chinese government
caused by unverifiable claims of concentration camps. There doesn't need to be
a state actor behind it. There doesn't even need to be a conspiracy.
Individual people are willing to cause plausibly deniable harm for even
imaginary profit. They can exploit pagerank-type algorithms based on intuition
alone. Pagerank algos aren't designed for war but it is difficult to claim
they didn't have a contribution in the current round of unrest in the Middle
East.

The exploitation of psychology for mass-marketing has been going on since
shortly after WWII. Currently market forces which are also algorithmic in
nature are pushing to make mobile devices ever more addictive and it would be
surprising if using AI to accelerate this process is a new idea. With 2
billion users and no ethics Facebook has become a kind of shadow government,
with the power to have non-users like me frozen-out by omission by my own
family. It is crazy not to be terrified of what they have done.

~~~
arcticfox
> For example, there is a lot of hatred brewing against the Chinese government
> caused by unverifiable claims of concentration camps.

"unverifiable claims" \- what? Even the Chinese government admits they
exist/existed [0].

Overall I think your point that it's overwhelmingly easy to confuse the truth
these days is exactly right, but you're the subject in your example instead of
the people you point the finger at.

[0] [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/30/world/asia/china-
xinjiang...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/30/world/asia/china-
xinjiang.html)

~~~
ganzuul
Concentration camps, not internment camps. Different claims. There are
verifiable claims and then there are claims which are not verified. People
look terrible when sick and dying and most people overlook that the being sick
and dying is happening while receiving medical care in a hospital setting. The
images from the Nazi concentration camps is something completely different.

The same thing happened after WWII where some people tacked on unverifiable
claims to the long list of Nazi atrocities. A well-known debunked claim
although not of atrocities is by someone claiming he was nasally administering
cocaine to Hitler.

Claims like these require investigation and detract from attention given to
real leads, but that takes work and people instead form mobs and repeat the
most relatable claims.

-

I don't see why I need to spell out how to decouple my personal experience
from the narrative I presented. Seems trivial to generalize.

~~~
stonogo
The difference between "concentration camp" and "internment camp" is one of
branding and there is no practical difference.

~~~
mensetmanusman
The common parlance in the US is that concentration camp means ‘what happened
during ww2’ because that is how the education system explained the term.

