The US Navy is now looking at artificial intelligence-powered drones to automatically detect enemy threats after a series of successful tests proved it is twice as fast in detecting underwater mines.
As per Bloomberg, according to Alex Campbell, the Navy service lead for the Pentagon's Defense Innovation Unit, which is located in California and works to integrate commercial technology into the armed forces, the endeavor has reduced the time needed to search for underwater explosives on the ocean floor by half.
Campbell adds that the Navy is currently announcing additional production contracts to increase the technology's application in underwater drones and investigate its potential for identifying hostile ships, aircraft, and other dangers.
According to Nick Ksiazek, a US Marine Corps major who oversees the project and works in DIU's AI portfolio, the Navy began evaluating machine learning algorithms that use sonar sensors to identify underwater shapes and traverse the ocean floor. According to Ksiazek, the project was started by the Navy and the DIU two years ago.
Sailing crews receive images, which they examine to identify enemy waterways or commercial shipping zones. According to Campbell, the Navy has been able to reduce its crew size by 10 on operations that have been cut down to two days thanks to the AI tools.
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AI-Powered Underwater Drones' Efficiency
To help them adapt to new environments, successful AI models frequently need to be quickly retrained. According to Ksiasek, distinguishing things on a sandy ocean floor from those on a rocky ocean floor or a seabed covered in trash requires distinct identification techniques. He said that the underwater drones have already been placed into service and have taken part in drills in the Indo-Pacific area.
Additionally, the Navy is updating its AI models more quickly so that when the surface of the drone is on the water, it can send them to the drones remotely rather than having to take them out of the water completely. The deployment of such models used to take six months. They are now down to less than a week, according to Ksiazek.
Militarized AI
AI continues to be militarized not only by the US but by the whole world. Most notably, during the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, the Israel Defence Force reportedly used AI to detect 37,000 potential targets in Gaza, the IDF, however, quickly refused these claims.
With the advancement of technology, the US has also lately increased the scope of its AI fighter aircraft program. The objective is to teach the AI new maneuvers that it will employ on its own whenever it takes off and to enable it to fly without the use of GPS.
The use of disruption technology to blind the pilot and obstruct communications is one of the drawbacks of depending solely on GPS, it was discovered. On the other hand, similar disturbances would be avoided if flights were GPS-free and instead relied upon AI to read the Earth's magnetic fields.
However, since AI is based on algorithms that have only been uploaded or applied to it from the ground, flight would force it to rely on knowledge that has already been stored. Nevertheless, to prepare for upcoming endeavors or actions, the tests can employ its data and apply it to the algorithms.
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