US DoD Adopts Ethical Principles on AI

The U.S. Department of Defense officially adopted a set of ethical principles concerning the military's use of artificial intelligence (AI). The principles act as a guide for all services to follow as they design, develop, and employ AI processes and capabilities.

Army researchers and their academic partners have found artificial intelligence techniques that allows U.S. Soldiers to learn 13 times faster. Photo Credit: U.S. Army illustration

According to the principles, the use of AI in the militarymust be responsible, equitable, traceable, reliable, and governable. ArmyFutures Command's Artificial Intelligence Task Force (AITF) is charged withunderstanding how to best incorporate AI into the Army's modernizationenterprise. Each of these areas of focus will help ensure that future use of AIis done at the highest standards adopted by many government, industry, andacademic partners.

The principles were adopted on the recommendation of theDefense Innovation Board and come as the Army looks to use AI as an enablingtechnology in all of its modernization priorities.

"Like most high-level principles, they can besubjective and contextual in practice," said Dr. Stephen Russell,Information Sciences Division Chief at the U.S. Army Combat CapabilitiesDevelopment Command's Army Research Laboratory, and Director of the Lab'sInternet of Battlefield Things Collaborative Research Alliance. "Forexample, responsibility often requires a qualitative assessment and thus wouldrequire related processes with quantitative controls that may be challenging todefine."

Brig. Gen. Matthew Easley, AI Task Force director, saidthese principles will help influence and inform the moral and responsible useof AI in the full spectrum of operations within the Army.

"Our nation's laws and values must always be taken intoconsideration when adopting and investing in the design, development, anddeployment of AI technologies within the Army," he said.

As the Army works to make decisions faster and costefficient, or buy more time for decisions, AI is a proven tool for commandersto harness. Working under these ethical principles ensures that a framework fordecision-making is universally applied.

Artificial intelligence projects already exist in nearlyevery cross-functional team in Army Futures Command, but Easley said the Armyis looking to take it a step further.

"Projects aren't enough – we need to do more than justa couple AI projects," he said. "We need to build infrastructure sowe can help the rest of the Army do its own AI projects."

This infrastructure will be a major step forward in solvingwhat experts call the "Input-Output Problem" – meaning that the Armywill be better equipped to process the volume of data it receives and turn itinto actionable information. The Defense Science Board found that "giventhe limitations of human abilities to rapidly process the vast amounts of dataavailable today, autonomous systems are now required to find trends and analyzepatterns."

"A lot of our data-sharing is being done with a humanin the loop - and rightly so," Easley said. "But we want machines tolook at a potential battlefield and identify targets to a human decision-makerfaster."