Yep! And it’s going to be incorporated into Project Convergence. It’s actually incredibly fascinating. A few years ago at my old job I was reading up on the concept and some of the tests they did. It’s mind bogglingly terrifying for anyone who’s on the receiving end.

Basically what their goal is, is to use AI to have various weapons system “talk” to each other in the battle space and make an ultra fast decision on the best way to react to any given situation (maximizing threat elimination, minimizing friendly and civilian casualties).

A good way to explain it is a test that they did a ways back.

Systems included in the test: F-35, MQ-9 (drone), one of those Boston dynamics robot dog things (a big one, basically a pack mule with a sensor package), self propelled artillery with smart shells, a platoon of regular soldiers (walking with the robot dog), and some satellites. All using AI to communicate.

I’ll set the scene.

The robot dog and platoon are walking through a battlefield, think a semi-wooded area. There’s a drone watching from above, an F-35 orbiting nearby, and a satellite watching everything.

All of a sudden, there’s enemy contact and incoming fire from behind cover off in the distance. The sensor package on the robot dog picks it up. Immediately, without any human input, this info is shared with the drone, F-35, satellite, and artillery battery. Now the drone and satellite have eyes on the “enemy”. The AI makes a quick calculation about how to deal with it in the best way. In this particular situation, it seems to be artillery. Within 15 seconds of that first shot ringing out, there is an artillery shell in the air and on its way to the enemy location without any human input whatsoever. And not one soldier was put in any physical danger (outside of the original shots being fired at them)