10 ms·

Deep in the Pentagon, a secret AI program to find hidden nuclear missiles

98 points by denissa 8y ago

mtgx 8y ago
I see Pentagon PR reached out to Reuters.
- dang 8y ago
  Maybe so, but please don't post unsubstantive comments here.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
ethbro 8y ago
I imagine reviewing positive training data for that model is terrifying.
afpx 8y ago
I’m not sure why this is news. I was interviewed for a position almost 10 years ago to develop software that categorized satellite imagery using heuristics, object detection, and classification. I assumed that similar projects had been going on for decades before. Much of the ‘AI’ research has been directly (or indirectly) funded by DoD, 3-letter agencies, NATO, and many other countries since the field’s infancy.
- hammock 8y ago
  Propaganda to counteract the negative press about AI for defense/Project Maven, perhaps.
  - ardent_uno 8y ago
    So propaganda to counter propaganda?
    - pteredactyl 8y ago
      Yes.
  - afpx 8y ago
    It is interesting that a new HN account posted this, and it was almost instantly upvoted by a dozen people.
staunch 8y ago
Detecting launch prep might be useful but it's ultimately just too easy to conceal a launch site to be the complete solution. It doesn't really help with a sneak attack from a major power and US missile defense isn't even good enough yet to reliably stop a NK attack. What the world really needs is to ensure mutually assured destruction is remains in effect. The world cannot afford to let the Russian or Chinese dictators believe they can pull off a first strike and take over the world. The problem right now is that the US is still trying to uphold MAD by itself and it's failing. The US nuclear triad is way out of date and potentially vulnerable to a first strike. We need to decentralize the system among other wealthy and trustworthy countries. All countries in the G7 should have enough nuclear weapons pointed at Russia and China to ensure MAD. And they should develop these weapons independently of the US for increased reliability and redundancy.
- muhbags 8y ago
  Frankly, I think the country that one should be the most concerned about pulling off a first strike is the USA, not China or Russia...
  - staunch 8y ago
    The US has had the opportunity to take over the world multiple times and did not avail itself. Dictatorships are much riskier because of how centralized power is. But the genius of MAD is that it doesn't rely on trust.
  - 21 8y ago
    Let me guess, because of Trump, right.
    - mathinpens 8y ago
      more like superfusing, missile defense systems, superior early warning radar...
- Harvey-Specter 8y ago
  > The US nuclear triad is way out of date and potentially vulnerable to a first strike. How are nuclear submarines vulnerable to a first strike?
forapurpose 8y ago
> The Pentagon is in a race against China and Russia to infuse more AI into its war machine ... Much of the focus is on the U.S., China, and Russia, but I wonder who else is doing it? Several years ago, a leading thinker on the application of modern IT to the military noted that it could represent an historic change: Throughout history, military power depended mostly on the quantity of two resources, wealth and population. But AI is much less strongly dependent on those things: You don't need lots of people; the robots and computers do much of the fighting. And wealth only helps so much: For AI, much of the war-fighting asset is software, which of course is free to produce after development, not expensive hardware. As we know well, spending more on software development doesn't always yield a better outcome. What's the benefit from spending $100 billion on development rather than $1 billion or even $10 million? For a lot of software, not much. (Hardware scale does help machine learning, but is there an upper limit or diminishing returns?) Small countries might have an enormous opportunity. Could Singapore or Israel take the lead in AI and become major military powers? Could Saudi Arabia or Iran afford to develop AI as good as the U.S., China, or Russia? What about private companies or individuals? I suspect it depends not on quantity of developers, but on quantity of 10x developers and on who first discovers the superior technology and, more importantly, its application. Remember that in WWII, German tanks were inferior to many of their enemies, but the Germans figured out how to use tanks more effectively and seized an enormous advantage before their enemies could catch up. EDIT: A couple clarifications and added the potential of private organizations
- SCHiM 8y ago
  I think this is a pretty insightful an accurate point. I'd like to add the following: 'Secret' software is very hard to keep secret: once your enemy has a semi-intact drone/AI then they'll have upgraded their own fleet within months (if yours was indeed superior). I agree that it seems possible that a country with less wealth might outperform a country or group with more wealth. However, it's likely that the wealthier nation is better able to steal the technology and catch-up than the reverse scenario. A wealthier group has more budget for monetary bribes, and can pursue more parallel reverse-engineering attempts than the less wealthy group.
  - 8y ago
rhacker 8y ago
> If the research is successful, such computer systems would be able to think for themselves At what point will journalists stop writing this. We may very well have general AI at some point in the future, but I really doubt it's going to be in our lifetimes.
- rhombocombus 8y ago
  It makes me bristle every time I read it. Advanced statistical computing != thinking! People love to conflate number crunching with intuition and all of the other things that are impossible for computers to do, so I expect it to continue.
  - pm90 8y ago
    Doesn't help that a lot of Tech companies actively promote that AI can deliver a lot more than it can (e.g. IBM, Tesla)
- shpx 8y ago
  They've been writing like that for the last 60 years. https://www.nytimes.com/1958/07/13/archives/electronic-brain-teaches-itself.html https://www.nytimes.com/1958/07/13/archives/electronic-brain...
sonnyblarney 8y ago
'War Games' -> WOPR [1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRsycWRQrc8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRsycWRQrc8
sonnyblarney 8y ago
Does the fact they are using a different approach (i.e. 'Deep Learning') to many of the same problems they've been trying to address for some time ... even really matter?
a008t 8y ago
But what if the nuclear missile is being carried by a bipedal walking tank?
flyGuyOnTheSly 8y ago
>such computer systems would be able to think for themselves, scouring huge amounts of data, including satellite imagery, with a speed and accuracy beyond the capability of humans, to look for signs of preparations for a missile launch Replace "a missile launch" with "a peaceful protest" and the statement suddenly becomes dastardly. The increasingly authoritarian Chinese government would absolutely adore a technology like that, I am sure of it.
- ddalex 8y ago
  But the Chinese already do this, it's just not that automated, and it relies on vast amounts of cheap manual labour. Or you don't think the internet filters itself at the border of China.
- vntok 8y ago
  > Government-sent postmen would be able to walk past every single door in the country every morning and [deliver mail]. Replace "deliver mail" with "look through the windows and write down what they see" and the statement suddenly becomes dastardly. See what I did there? I took an random situation and made it instantly negative and big-brotherish just by invoking an imaginary narrative. Conspiracy theories just don't help advancing arguments.
  - jMyles 8y ago
    I think you're being unfair. You've conflating the much simpler task of changing the label with a much broader change (ie, throwing away the entire practice in favor of a completely different and more difficult one). Which do you honestly thing is more realistic and more consistent with what we know of the history of the state?
asdfman123 8y ago
I misread this as "secret AI program to fire nuclear missiles" and was briefly terrified.
Sophistifunk 8y ago
Do you want Skynet? Because this is how you get Skynet.
sulam 8y ago
I'm kind of sad that we have enough imagery of nuclear missiles being fired to train the model and verify it. :/
pteredactyl 8y ago
This is the most propaganda headline I've ever read.
arif_sohaib 8y ago
I can only say from experience in Pakistan but culture makes it difficult for other countries to succeed if they are turning away developers for ethnic, tribal or religious reasons or for being on the autism spectrum. Not to mention the culture of never questioning authority figures making proposing new ideas much more difficult.

98 points by denissa 8y ago

mtgx 8y ago

I see Pentagon PR reached out to Reuters.

dang 8y ago
Maybe so, but please don't post unsubstantive comments here.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

ethbro 8y ago

I imagine reviewing positive training data for that model is terrifying.

afpx 8y ago

I’m not sure why this is news. I was interviewed for a position almost 10 years ago to develop software that categorized satellite imagery using heuristics, object detection, and classification. I assumed that similar projects had been going on for decades before. Much of the ‘AI’ research has been directly (or indirectly) funded by DoD, 3-letter agencies, NATO, and many other countries since the field’s infancy.

hammock 8y ago
Propaganda to counteract the negative press about AI for defense/Project Maven, perhaps.
- ardent_uno 8y ago
  So propaganda to counter propaganda?
  - pteredactyl 8y ago
    Yes.
- afpx 8y ago
  It is interesting that a new HN account posted this, and it was almost instantly upvoted by a dozen people.

staunch 8y ago

Detecting launch prep might be useful but it's ultimately just too easy to conceal a launch site to be the complete solution. It doesn't really help with a sneak attack from a major power and US missile defense isn't even good enough yet to reliably stop a NK attack. What the world really needs is to ensure mutually assured destruction is remains in effect. The world cannot afford to let the Russian or Chinese dictators believe they can pull off a first strike and take over the world. The problem right now is that the US is still trying to uphold MAD by itself and it's failing. The US nuclear triad is way out of date and potentially vulnerable to a first strike. We need to decentralize the system among other wealthy and trustworthy countries. All countries in the G7 should have enough nuclear weapons pointed at Russia and China to ensure MAD. And they should develop these weapons independently of the US for increased reliability and redundancy.

muhbags 8y ago
Frankly, I think the country that one should be the most concerned about pulling off a first strike is the USA, not China or Russia...
- staunch 8y ago
  The US has had the opportunity to take over the world multiple times and did not avail itself. Dictatorships are much riskier because of how centralized power is. But the genius of MAD is that it doesn't rely on trust.
- 21 8y ago
  Let me guess, because of Trump, right.
  - mathinpens 8y ago
    more like superfusing, missile defense systems, superior early warning radar...
Harvey-Specter 8y ago
> The US nuclear triad is way out of date and potentially vulnerable to a first strike. How are nuclear submarines vulnerable to a first strike?

forapurpose 8y ago

> The Pentagon is in a race against China and Russia to infuse more AI into its war machine ... Much of the focus is on the U.S., China, and Russia, but I wonder who else is doing it? Several years ago, a leading thinker on the application of modern IT to the military noted that it could represent an historic change: Throughout history, military power depended mostly on the quantity of two resources, wealth and population. But AI is much less strongly dependent on those things: You don't need lots of people; the robots and computers do much of the fighting. And wealth only helps so much: For AI, much of the war-fighting asset is software, which of course is free to produce after development, not expensive hardware. As we know well, spending more on software development doesn't always yield a better outcome. What's the benefit from spending $100 billion on development rather than $1 billion or even $10 million? For a lot of software, not much. (Hardware scale does help machine learning, but is there an upper limit or diminishing returns?) Small countries might have an enormous opportunity. Could Singapore or Israel take the lead in AI and become major military powers? Could Saudi Arabia or Iran afford to develop AI as good as the U.S., China, or Russia? What about private companies or individuals? I suspect it depends not on quantity of developers, but on quantity of 10x developers and on who first discovers the superior technology and, more importantly, its application. Remember that in WWII, German tanks were inferior to many of their enemies, but the Germans figured out how to use tanks more effectively and seized an enormous advantage before their enemies could catch up. EDIT: A couple clarifications and added the potential of private organizations

SCHiM 8y ago
I think this is a pretty insightful an accurate point. I'd like to add the following: 'Secret' software is very hard to keep secret: once your enemy has a semi-intact drone/AI then they'll have upgraded their own fleet within months (if yours was indeed superior). I agree that it seems possible that a country with less wealth might outperform a country or group with more wealth. However, it's likely that the wealthier nation is better able to steal the technology and catch-up than the reverse scenario. A wealthier group has more budget for monetary bribes, and can pursue more parallel reverse-engineering attempts than the less wealthy group.
- 8y ago

rhacker 8y ago

> If the research is successful, such computer systems would be able to think for themselves At what point will journalists stop writing this. We may very well have general AI at some point in the future, but I really doubt it's going to be in our lifetimes.

rhombocombus 8y ago
It makes me bristle every time I read it. Advanced statistical computing != thinking! People love to conflate number crunching with intuition and all of the other things that are impossible for computers to do, so I expect it to continue.
- pm90 8y ago
  Doesn't help that a lot of Tech companies actively promote that AI can deliver a lot more than it can (e.g. IBM, Tesla)
shpx 8y ago
They've been writing like that for the last 60 years. https://www.nytimes.com/1958/07/13/archives/electronic-brain-teaches-itself.html https://www.nytimes.com/1958/07/13/archives/electronic-brain...

sonnyblarney 8y ago

'War Games' -> WOPR [1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRsycWRQrc8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRsycWRQrc8

sonnyblarney 8y ago

Does the fact they are using a different approach (i.e. 'Deep Learning') to many of the same problems they've been trying to address for some time ... even really matter?

a008t 8y ago

But what if the nuclear missile is being carried by a bipedal walking tank?

flyGuyOnTheSly 8y ago

>such computer systems would be able to think for themselves, scouring huge amounts of data, including satellite imagery, with a speed and accuracy beyond the capability of humans, to look for signs of preparations for a missile launch Replace "a missile launch" with "a peaceful protest" and the statement suddenly becomes dastardly. The increasingly authoritarian Chinese government would absolutely adore a technology like that, I am sure of it.

ddalex 8y ago
But the Chinese already do this, it's just not that automated, and it relies on vast amounts of cheap manual labour. Or you don't think the internet filters itself at the border of China.
vntok 8y ago
> Government-sent postmen would be able to walk past every single door in the country every morning and [deliver mail]. Replace "deliver mail" with "look through the windows and write down what they see" and the statement suddenly becomes dastardly. See what I did there? I took an random situation and made it instantly negative and big-brotherish just by invoking an imaginary narrative. Conspiracy theories just don't help advancing arguments.
- jMyles 8y ago
  I think you're being unfair. You've conflating the much simpler task of changing the label with a much broader change (ie, throwing away the entire practice in favor of a completely different and more difficult one). Which do you honestly thing is more realistic and more consistent with what we know of the history of the state?

asdfman123 8y ago

I misread this as "secret AI program to fire nuclear missiles" and was briefly terrified.

Sophistifunk 8y ago

Do you want Skynet? Because this is how you get Skynet.

sulam 8y ago

I'm kind of sad that we have enough imagery of nuclear missiles being fired to train the model and verify it. :/

pteredactyl 8y ago

This is the most propaganda headline I've ever read.

arif_sohaib 8y ago

I can only say from experience in Pakistan but culture makes it difficult for other countries to succeed if they are turning away developers for ethnic, tribal or religious reasons or for being on the autism spectrum. Not to mention the culture of never questioning authority figures making proposing new ideas much more difficult.