UK procurement is too glacial to bring AI into defense, MPs told The UK's procurement processes are not fit to bring AI into the nation's military capabilities, lawmakers heard at a parliamentary hearing. Speaking to the AI in Weapon Systems Committee late last week, Andrew Kinniburgh, director-general for defense within manufacturers' association Make UK, said existing procurement …
AI is the next big scam. .... Tron
Here’s different news from a couple of dudes whom I presume if you believe AI is the next big scam, you would think a pair of deluded fools and useless tools, Tron, and whilst you might not be wrong, they might not be wrong to be rightly worried about the expanding explosive might and trail-blazing abilities and utility of AI developing at a prodigious exponential rate.
Mr Sunak and Ms Donelan are pushing for the UK to be a hub for AI safety research and regulation.Ms Donelan said: “The UK is consistently recognised as a world leader in AI, frequently ranking in the top three countries – and I have every confidence we can cement our position as the geographical home of AI.” ...... https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/09/25/artificial-intelligence-create-bioweapons-warning/
Spookily enough, that Daily Telegraph report today [25 September 2023 • 9:40am], further voicing concern about loss of control of future direction .....
“There are two areas the summit will particularly focus on: misuse risks, for example where a bad actor is aided by new AI capabilities in biological or cyber-attacks, and loss of control risks that could emerge from advanced systems that we would seek to be aligned with our values and intentions.” ...... Experts have raised concerns that the systems could be close to writing their own code, making them progressively more powerful and becoming “misaligned” with human intentions.
...... echoes a certain alien vibe shared yesterday [24 September - 5:37pm] and which applies equally well to wayward hindering regulation as much as it does to bad laws ......
Bad laws are constantly disobeyed and regularly broken and only always identify the crooked cohorts responsible for the perverse corruption it both feeds and seeks to conceal and keep a dirty dark secret.Good luck not, with being able to do the likes of that nowadays, in the times and spaces of indefensible 0days and virtual frenemies internetworking madness and mayhem and CHAOS* and conflict to order for New More Orderly World Orders.
Deny it at your peril for there certainly be A.N.Others enjoying and employing it at their leisure for more than just pleasure and most probably also for the love of shedloads of fiat money** ……. :-) which is how you can try to capture and captivate them and render yourselves sympathetic to their greater good causes.
** …. If the American Way works well for simple humans, who is to say it doesn’t/won’t simply work equally well for A.N.Others too. No need to reinvent a perfectly good wheel on a wagon designed to both crush and champion novel and noble and Nobel ground-breaking enterprise.
And just because of those systemic roadblocks to novel ground-breaking developments outside of the conventional and traditional, are UKGBNI defences and revolutionary leading attack forces both catastrophically compromised and denied necessary great game changing materiel and sensitive intel which abhors the vacuum and then naturally exports itself to a more switched on, and even very likely to be thought a hostile opposing and peer competitor nation.
Such is a scandalous state of affairs for any country to be suffering and fully responsible for.
And yes, I do know what I'm talking about with regard to all of the above.
No Guts, No Glory is the sad but just fate of all such wannabe leadership no better than dead wood armchair warriors
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defence procurement has always been bloody slow as the plans have to be seen by everyone from the admirals at the top through various committees via a beancounter assesment, then left in the minister's in tray until its noticed before being lost somewhere in the civil service postal system.
And thats before its put out to tendering
There is always a way around the above.
Declare war..... then the 20 year project to provide endless employment for BAE (and a ship or 2 if we're lucky) turns into something built in the dockyards in 3 months(just dont ask about the paperwork.... that takes 6 years to fill out)
That is all too easily believable to not be honestly true, Boris the Cockroach. What a complete cock-up of a clusterfuck. And UKGBNI find that perfectly acceptable? What a load of plonkers.
Declare wars and propose peace and reconciliation and infrastructure rebuilding, just like HS2 [high speed railway building] and global panic pandemic protection are really just virtual smoke screens for slush funding and money laundering and quantitive easing/vast fiat paper money printing and distribution which has populations constantly worried about doom and gloom and imposed hardships rather than enjoying what life has to offer but which has been put out of their reach because of banking systems mandates to require constant inflation which inevitably eventually makes everything too expensive for newly arrived folk and steady old hands to purchase?
You can blame the hunt and chase for profit for that misstep. An arbitrary additional and oft exceptionally expensive cost for practically nothing on virtually everything one sees and would think to own ..... and even sell on for further profit in many cases, further exacerbating the problem dilemma. It’s a right dodgy racket in deed, indeed, and eventually always makes absolutely everyone a great deal poorer rather than richer.
How very strange it is that they cannot see and don’t understand that.
I’m pleased that “AI” (I hate this phrase - there is nothing “intelligent” - artificial or otherwise - about any AI systems outside of science fiction) isn’t making it into the military any time soon.
But this does remind me of a meeting I sat in a few years ago. Imagine - a big oval table. Lots of VERY serious looking army people (they always seem to be trying to outdo each other in just how VERY VERY SERIOUS they can look - it’s hilarious). A few techies that are actually doing the work (that’s where I came in) and a bunch of management hang-ons and admin people.
After a while of generally talking utter bollox by all sides, one chap stood up and started giving a short speech about his latest line of research. The utterly astonishing and groundbreaking insight that had popped into his head like some beacon from God him/herself basically boiled down to “look at what the general tech industry are doing, and use the good bits in our stuff”. Can you imagine the reaction? I almost fell to my knees right there and then to worship this second coming personified!!
As I left that meeting and drove back to the office, I turned to my boss in the car and said “…and people wonder why fuck-all gets done with the billions that pours into military procurement”.
Where have these people been for the last 50+ years? (I can only speak for my experience; I suspect the problem goes back much further.) I worked (as a Naval officer) in a part of the MoD Procurement outfit in 1973-ish. The headline message of this article was crystal clear even then. I suspect that part of this is inherent in the nature of the activity. On the other hand, think of those activities which have been created or driven as a result of military needs (and funding). Also bear in mind how quickly some things can move when and "Urgent Operational Requirement" arises.
Why just AI or Defence, public sector procurement is too slow for a lot of technologies. Woz a time when we quoted 386 based PC to a bank. By the time they placed the order, 486 was out and 386 was out of production. We offered free upgrade to 486. But, due to rigid tendering rules, bank refused.
solution: bring in AI to make it faster and truly competitive in the current, dynamically evolving environment, etc, etc. OUR AI, because our AI is good, while their AI is evil, here's the pen, yes, we do take checks.
This in a country that struggled to replace the tank to a modern variant. Our wonderful wait for carrier ships that somehow cost billions if they wanted upgrading yet the manufacturer offered to do it for millions. We developed a wonderful rifle that didnt work so sent it to Germany who fixed the design. And so on.
Yet in Europe there was the country (cant remember which) where soldiers said bang because they ran out of bullets. Biden telling the world that the US is running out of artillery shells which is why they are supplying Ukraine cluster munitions. Or Germany who sent pilots and planes to Iraq to fight ISIS and the only one to arrive at the destination was the German war minister (I believe the name was Ursula).
Ukraine seem to have developed a torpedo to assist with their black sea operations. Military improvements come from the necessity of active war. Outside that is a lot of money thrown about while sometimes neglecting the forces we have.
Its all very well saying that defence procurement procedures are too slow but equipment development can also be drawn out. How many defence contracts have had to be cancelled because the equipment became obsolete before delivery? I cant think of any examples off-hand but the history books are full of them. Perhaps BAE Systems Nimrod MRA4 is a prime example.
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