The AI Commander

Book excerpt: What does AI mean for the role of humans in war? The AI Commander addresses the largely neglected question of how the fusion of machines into the war machine will affect the human condition of warfare. James Johnson emphasizes the "mind" - both human and machine - and the mechanisms of thought (intelligence, consciousness, emotion, memory, experience, etc.) to consider the effects of AI and autonomy on the human condition of war. Johnson investigates the vexing and misunderstood - and at times contradictory - ethical, moral, and normative implications, whether incremental, transformative, or revolutionary, of synthesizing man and machine in future algorithmic warfare - or AI-enabled centaur warfighting. At the heart of these vexing questions are whether we are inevitably moving toward a situation in which AI-enabled autonomous weapons will make strategic decisions in place of humans and thus become the owners of those decisions. Can AI-powered systems replace human commanders? And, more importantly, should they? The AI Commander argues that AI cannot be merely passive and neutral force multipliers of human cognition. Instead, they will likely become - either by conscious choice or inadvertently - strategic actors in war. AI will transform the role and nature of human warfare, but not necessarily in the ways most observers expect.