DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The appearance of artificial intelligence in defense is prompting a reevaluation of decades-old military leadership traditions, top air force officials from across the globe said at a gathering here earlier this month.
The Nov. 12 Dubai Air Chiefs Conference, or DIACC, that kicked off this 12 months’s iteration of the Dubai Air Show explored the elemental changes airmen should expect because of this of AI permeating their professions.
“Traditional leadership style is seen as somewhat archaic or outdated, and understandably,” Brig. Gen. Azzan Ali A. Al Nuaimi, commander of the UAE’s air warfare and missile center, told the audience. “A top-down approach or hierarchy-based decision making isn’t any longer well-suited for an operational environment where information is more fluid and rapid,” he added.
Armed forces across the globe are embracing the promise of artificial intelligence in military tasks. The extent of complexity within the technologies varies greatly, from speeding up rote evaluation tasks that previously took days or perhaps weeks for humans, to generating novel courses of motion on the battlefield based on an unlimited amount of contextual data.
Sophisticated AI algorithms carry the chance of constructing undesirable calls, especially with regards to targeting and killing. That fear has prompted leaders to maintain humans within the loop for sensitive tasks. “It is vital to strike a balance between trusting AI and human decision-making,” Al Nuaimi said.
Air Vice Marshal Glen Braz, who manages readiness for the Australian Air Force, argued that the speed of future conflicts means command-and-control networks must sustain.
“AI has increased the space and pace of warfare,” he said. “There shall be more needs moving forward to delegate decision making in a fast-paced environment, where disconnectivity is present.”
Italian Air Force Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Luca Goretti struck the same chord, arguing that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has proven the necessity to prize connectivity above all else.
“In the event you can manage the information, you win. In the event you cannot manage or process it, you lose,” he said. “In the event you keep a chunk of data to yourself, you lose. The Ukraine war has taught us the necessity for that, to share the information.”
While the consensus amongst top officers here was to favor shorter chains of command to accommodate next-generation of AI within the military, other experts consider there’s one other side to the argument.
“While there could also be some compression of chains of commands attributable to the increased potential speed of AI-supported decision making, this can not at all times be the case,” said retired Australian Army Maj. Gen. Mick Ryan. “Sometimes we may use it to decelerate decision-making so we will be more strategic in our considering.”
Elisabeth Gosselin-Malo is a Europe correspondent for Defense News. She covers a wide selection of topics related to military procurement and international security, and focuses on reporting on the aviation sector. She relies in Milan, Italy.