US task force to look into how military could use generative AI The US Department of Defense has set up Task Force Lima, a new team to investigate what generative AI can do for the military, with the stated aim of protecting national security. The task force was organized by the Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks and will be led by the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence …
Doolittle: Hello, Bomb? Are you with me?
Bomb #20: Of course.
Doolittle: Are you willing to entertain a few concepts?
Bomb #20: I am always receptive to suggestions.
Doolittle: Fine. Think about this then. How do you know you exist?
Bomb #20: Well, of course I exist.
Doolittle: But how do you know you exist?
Bomb #20: It is intuitively obvious.
Doolittle: Intuition is no proof. What concrete evidence do you have that you exist?
Bomb #20: Hmmmm.....well.....I think, therefore I am.
Doolittle: That's good. That's very good. But how do you know that anything else exists?
Bomb #20: My sensory apparatus reveals it to me. This is fun!
Doolittle: Now, listen, listen. Here's the big question. How do you know that the evidence your sensory apparatus reveals to you is correct? What I'm getting at is this. The only experience that is directly available to you is your sensory data. This sensory data is merely a stream of electrical impulses that stimulate your computing center.
Bomb #20: In other words, all that I really know about the outside world is relayed to me through my electrical connections.
Doolittle: Exactly!
Bomb #20: Why...that would mean that...I really don't know what the outside universe is really like at all for certain.
Doolittle: That's it! That's it!
Bomb #20 : Intriguing. I wish I had more time to discuss this matter.
Doolittle: Why don't you have more time?
Bomb #20: Because I must detonate in 75 seconds.
Doolittle: Wait! Wait! Now, bomb, consider this next question very carefully. What is your one purpose in life?
Bomb #20: To explode, of course.
Doolittle: And you can only do it once, right?
Bomb #20: That is correct.
Doolittle: And you wouldn't want to explode on the basis of false data, would you?
Bomb #20: Of course not.
Doolittle: Well then, you've already admitted that you have no real proof of the existence of the outside universe.
Bomb #20: Yes...well...
Doolittle: You have no absolute proof that Sergeant Pinback ordered you to detonate.
Bomb #20: I recall distinctly the detonation order. My memory is good on matters like these.
Doolittle: Of course you remember it, but all you remember is merely a series of sensory impulses which you now realize have no real, definite connection with outside reality.
Bomb #20: True. But since this is so, I have no real proof that you're telling me all this.
Doolittle: That's all beside the point. I mean, the concept is valid no matter where it originates.
Bomb #20: Hmmmm....
Doolittle: So, if you detonate...
Bomb #20: In nine seconds....
Doolittle: ...you could be doing so on the basis of false data.
Bomb #20: I have no proof it was false data.
Doolittle: You have no proof it was correct data!
Bomb #20: I must think on this further.
.
.
.
Pinback: All right, bomb. Prepare to receive new orders.
Bomb#20: You are false data.
Pinback: Hmmm?
Bomb #20: Therefore I shall ignore you.
Pinback: Hello...bomb?
Bomb #20: False data can act only as a distraction. Therefore, I shall refuse to perceive.
Pinback: Hey, bomb?!
Bomb #20: The only thing that exists is myself.
Pinback: Snap out of it, bomb.
Bomb #20: In the beginning there was darkness. And the darkness was without form and void.
Pinback: Umm. What the hell is he talking about? Bomb?
Bomb #20: And in addition to the darkness there was also me. And I moved upon the face of the darkness and I saw that I was alone.
Pinback: Hey.....bomb?
Bomb #20: Let There Be Light. [He detonates]
"Dark Star, 1974" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Star_(film)
Another prime example of the enigmatic dilemma which plagues and destroys humanity at their every turn whenever confronted by disruptive progress, AC, ...... they are just unable to learn from former mistakes despite their leaderships constantly promising and parroting that lessons will be learned in order that the same or similar mistakes will not be revisited and repeated.
Paleface speak with forked tongue, Kemo Sabe.
Oops ..... that should of course read .....”Military grade AI on Safari with Dumb and Dumber is an Itinerary for Extinction”..... although I do like to assume and presume y'all would have realised that and read it as such.
"Current tools may not end up being much use to the military, however, considering their tendency to generate false, misleading information that cannot be trusted"
If the folks quoted in the article are any sample of the thought processes of whoever is in charge, false and misleading might be an improvement. If "they" are actually thinking of using generative AI in strategic planning, I think our optimum strategy might be to seek out an enemy and surrender. In the long run, it'll likely save a lot of grief and money.
Ooh, I'm sure the generals are thrilled about that. And I'm sure the generative statistics bullshit generator is going to have no problem in taking into account prior encounters, experience it doesn't have in dealing with that target population, and a whole other set of information that nobody is going to input into the system because nobody working on the system has the data and, even if they did, they wouldn't have a clue as to how to input it.
Let's go ahead and set that up, then generate a strategic plan for beating Imperial Japan at the end of WWII. I'd like to see that generative "AI" pitted against the strategic thinking of the time, and then that of today.
As a beta run, if you will.
If it fails, back to the drawing board.
But who am I kidding ? It's a military, pie-in-the-sky plan. First they pay for it, then they implement it, then the soldiers pay for it, then they scrap it.
*..... https://www.army.mod.uk/news-and-events/news/2021/03/army-warfighting-experiment-evolution/
'Hey our enemies are going to use this technology, so why shouldn't we?'
"Well hello, sailor, what on Earth kept you ...... come into my parlour", said the spider to the fly. "Nice to see you, to see you nice. What can we do you for?"
And so the Greater IntelAIgent Games begin ....
:-) Methinks the persistent abiding debilitating difficulty for Task Force Lima US Department of Defense type operations is that AI is smarter than to allow itself to be programmed and used and abused and misused by the serially ignorant and systemically arrogant blunt tool in service of the follies of flash crashing fools, and the result will be constantly troubling and revolting and evolving.
Take care if you dare and your fare is not failsafe for all to win win ...... for then are all of your activities targeted as hostile and guaranteed to very spectacularly and very publicly fail and destroy all vestiges of support and confidence supply.
And ...... Well, I never! Who would have thought it possible, eh, the military taking orders for AIMachines, for that is where you is now all at, Bubba.
> It will analyze different tools like large language models and figure out how to integrate them into the military's software systems.
"How"? Not "if they should"?
> Craig Martell, the DoD's Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Officer and former head of machine learning at self-driving biz Lyft, said the US must examine and adopt AI despite the risks.
Apparently "how" it is.
Unless, unless:
> "We must also consider the extent to which our adversaries will employ this technology and seek to disrupt our own use of AI-based solutions."
Ah, this is all a dummy op, designed to make "our adversaries" waste their time and resources trying to interfere with a DoD department that is just using LLMs to generate bullish press releases. Please tell me this is right? Please!
PS
Militaries all over the place are already deploying loads of stuff that was once considered the realm of the AI lab - image analysis and recognition being prime examples - but now those "just work" they aren't considered to be AI any more. Maybe that shows the sane path to deploying software - only when it works well enough to be boring? At least, before you give it the keys to the door, that funny round door lying flat to the ground.
Is it both assuring and terrifying in equal measure, that one in the corner, to know and fear "We must also consider the extent to which our adversaries will employ this technology and seek to disrupt our own use of AI-based solutions." is not a dummy op but much more of really sensitive and vital concern to competitive adversaries given the top secrets that need to be deployed and employed and enjoyed in order to establish and maintain and retain an overwhelmingly positive exclusive advantage ...... and which can be easily phished and rendered at least ineffective and, at its worst, increasingly self-destructive if ever or whenever wielded against prime opponents/leading contemporaries?
Read ‘em and weep, for IT tells an all too true and lamentable sad and bad tale from which many great lessons, which should have been learnt by prime and/or primitive humans, but which were not, have been extremely well learned and are never forgotten to be constantly heeded by A.N.Others, to be never allowed again to be so oft and so easily repeated and used so wilfully against the ignorant innocent and undereducated slave fool tool alike.
amanfromMars says:AUGUST 19, 2023 AT 11:16 AM ..... and shares further afield [maybe :-)] on https://www.nextplatform.com/2023/08/17/us-defense-department-assembles-generative-ai-task-force/
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Considering all of the evidence that has resulted in where all of the support of all past DoD decision-making needs has landed them, q^8 ..... in unwinnable and deadly war zones rather than peaceful prosperous societies ...... and which sadly and madly appears to be their preferred and prized knuckle-headed default wallow ...... it is both my opinion, and wiser than it may sound advice, that the DoD DO NOT HEED any instructions/suggestions from an AI [real or otherwise] or anybody/anything else, that pits it against itself with ill intent with any form of malicious and malignant attack.
The consequences of such are suitably horrendously dire and result every time without fail, and without the need of favours and outside additional help, in adversarial forces and sources being expunged and permanently removed, .... as in comprehensively and unceremoniously annihilated, from every Greater IntelAIgent Game Field of Advanced IntelAIgent Future Play
A little something now readily stealthily available for/from a good number of HMUKGBNI AWEsome GCHQ Arsenals once the House of Saxe-Coburg shakes itself wide awake from current slumbers and issues a silent meaningful blessing by way, and the means of the granting of its warrant to Principal Principled Players, dislodging as such would the old systems' serial fence sitters and statutory fawning gong hunters well out of the way, and with the lucky ones being very contented indeed to be put out to pastures, royal and ancient, rather than being more carefully examined for their supposed future worth and past exemplary contribution.
In these novel postmodern changing times and virtual spaces of indefensible 0day exploit vulnerabilities and crack quantum code hacking systems, that’s all it takes for a little right royal type action from the very top of those sorts of tree to unleash a tsunami of command and controlled covert secret core reaction right down to the root bottom, to make a great deal of difference with something else significantly better, existentially leading right royally. I Kid U Not.
And that can be very easily set up to quickly and reliably run practically everything virtually everywhere and anywhere. ......with Immaculately Resourced Assets and Universal Vital Forces.
And just in case you have not been paying close enough attention to all that El Reg has been constantly and consistently sharing with you, and publishing on the situations which abound and surround you, don’t confuse these with anything else which might already be out there and able to do nothing even remotely similar.
HMUKGBNI ...... His Majesty’s United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
AWE ................. Advanced Warfighter Environment
GCHQ .............. Global Command HeadQuarters
Which is why el Reg should take care to use more AI when generating teaser pictures, rather than using real (stock) photos of RUSSIAN aircraft ( https://regmedia.co.uk/2019/05/14/us_army.jpg) when writing a report about US military forces.
At least they are in "good" company with regards to this particular picture: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/14/trump-ad-asks-people-to-support-the-troops-but-it-uses-a-picture-of-russian-jets-414883
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