Chief of Defence Staff General Anil Chauhan on Saturday said the world is at the cusp of a huge transformation where artificial intelligence and autonomous systems will influence future warfare.
In his remarks during a panel discussion at the 11th Raisina Dialogue here, Gen Chauhan also said that as the use of artificial intelligence (AI) increases, there will be a huge requirement for energy, arguing that nuclear power and AI “complement each other” when it comes to powering data centres.The session was titled ‘The Tech Triad’, referring to nuclear power, AI and autonomous weaponry.
Emphasising the growing role of AI in military use, Gen Chauhan said that AI is playing a major part in the ongoing conflicts as well.
Earlier, military might was based on platforms, tanks, aircraft, ships, and submarines, but today, apart from those, one also needs data, network and intelligence, the CDS said.
“Artificial intelligence is going to play a major role in warfare tomorrow, and so would autonomous systems,” he said.
“Unless you have automated systems, it becomes difficult to make decisions on time. In combat, if you want to win, there are only two things – timely decisions and right decisions – and AI and autonomous systems somewhat help us to do that,” he said.
The CDS added that for running AI-based systems, a huge amount of power and energy is required, and “that is the future”.In response to a query from the moderator, Gen Chauhan said energy has always been part of national security.
“Everything is getting weaponised in current warfare, including oil and gas and rare earth elements, so they are closely linked… We are at the cusp of this huge transformation where AI is going to influence future warfighting, and there will huge requirement for power,” he said, without naming any conflict.
The CDS also underlined that India is taking “baby steps in AI, and we are yet to formulate how we want to use it”.
“As of now, to say that we will only have power structured to fuel the armed forces’ need for AI would be slightly premature. But there certainly will be a requirement for dedicated power to run AI systems for the military in future,” Gen Chauhan said.
General Romeo S Brawner Jr, Chief of Staff, Armed Forces of the Philippines, who was also part of the panel, said a lot of lessons can be learned from various conflicts around the world, and “one important lesson is that the future of warfare is AI and AI-enabled autonomous systems”.Gen Brawner also spoke about some of the AI-related initiatives in the Philippines, including military solutions.
“AI and AI-enabled autonomous systems are going to be very important for us to create a credible defence, and a credible deterrence,” he asserted.
Gen Brawner also emphasised that the Philippines should have an independent energy source infrastructure.
