Declaration of war or peace - they are going to entrust the solution of such important issues to machines. In the UK, a computer system is being developed that is essentially similar to that known to all fans of science fiction based on the blockbuster "The Terminator". As you know, in the film, humanity designed the Skynet defense supercomputer with artificial intelligence, which once decided to unleash a global war against people.
The military intelligence machine currently under development already has a name. The system, in charge of which can theoretically be given control of military operations and making global decisions about war and peace on Earth, is called ALADDIN (an abbreviation for "Autonomous Learning Agent for Decentralized Databases and Information Networks"). It is curious that in terms of its technical characteristics it should almost completely coincide with the supercomputer that featured in the Terminator.
The system will be a decentralized network of computers equipped with a self-learning intelligent agent-program that independently performs the task specified by the user for long periods of time. Intelligent agents are used in computer science, in particular, for the constant search and collection of the necessary information.
In fact, strategic computers themselves have existed for a long time. Suffice it to recall chess machines or "intelligence" in strategic video games. But now scientists are introducing all these ideas into the defense industry at the most global level.
The system is being developed by the British company BAE systems. According to the experts who create ALADDIN, people are no longer able to make adequate decisions in the framework of modern wars. The human brain is unable to process too much information that the latest technical means from the battlefield provide it. Moreover, these colossal amounts of data have to be processed as quickly as possible, which baffles a person. Because of this, the commanders decide to force the river along or open fire on their own. There are many cases when people make erroneous decisions, confusing similar names of the area and the like. According to the British, ALADDIN will not allow such a miscalculation. In addition, the computer will operate with a variety of information, it will be able to calculate many possible options for conducting a battle and choose the optimal one.
Finally, the ALADDIN system would be much faster in contact with robots on the battlefield than a human general. By order of the US Navy, an Octavia robot worth 200 thousand dollars has already been designed. A machine with a human-like face will have to take an active part in hostilities in the future. For example, she will be able to participate in counter-terrorism operations in Afghanistan as a sapper to clear roads and buildings.
As Alexei Bakuradze, a researcher at the Laboratory of Information Technologies for Robotics Control of the St. Petersburg Institute for Informatics and Automation of the Russian Academy of Sciences, explained to RBC daily, ALADDIN will most likely be based on multilayer perceptrons (a cybernetic model of the brain): “There is an algorithm of recurrent learning in real time, which allows system to learn quickly and effectively solve tasks such as command and control, clearly master the "friend or foe" system.
The developers believe that ALADDIN will be successful not only for strategic planning of the operation, but also for making global decisions from the category of "to fight - not to fight". And here it remains unclear - in a situation where people could agree, whether the cold-blooded system, after evaluating all the parameters, would not want to give the command: "Fire!"
