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>>Throughout history, military power depended mostly on the quantity of two resources, wealth and population. I thought that military power depended primarily

>>Throughout history, military power depended mostly on the quantity of two resources, wealth and population. I thought that military power depended primarily on the quantity of population and materiél. The latter is driven primarily by wealth, but also relies on building, operating and maintaining a manufacturing and industrial base. Smarter software will help equalize and hopefully reduce coordination costs (i.e. command hierarchy & effective intelligence) but doesn't really help with population nor materiél factors.

mieseratte 8y ago
> but doesn't really help with population nor materiél. To add, AI can help reduce staffing, failures, costs, etc. What it can't do is magically project force. This requires boots on the ground or a weapons system capable of reaching out and touching someone. This requires materiél, and for the initial build-up flesh-and-bone soldiers. However, there is a possible exception in the form of cyber warfare. If AI can sufficiently disrupt digital infrastructure it could hypothetically bring another power to its knees. Still, if that power can bounce back from the initial setback that AI would again become a less direct asset.
- pm90 8y ago
  Correct. And Cyber-based attacks are much less visible and easier to hide than overt attacks e.g. a cruise missile. But as things get more automated, the attack surface and concomitant damage will only increase. This could have very real military effects. Suppose your supply lines/defense contractors are targeted by foreign digital attackers. Even if your Military itself uses secure communications and infrastructure, if their dependents are disrupted, it will directly impact their effectiveness.
maxerickson 8y ago
Mine automation is a big deal.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
forapurpose 8y ago
Good point about materiél. When I wrote the GP, I tried to think of a country with wealth (and population) that lost a war due to a lack of manufacturing capacity and couldn't come up with one, so I stuck with 'wealth'. Honest question: Can anyone think of such a place? I'm not including countries that had manufacturing capacity but didn't use it for military purposes. > Smarter software will help equalize and hopefully reduce coordination costs (i.e. command hierarchy & effective intelligence) but doesn't really help with population nor materiél factors. That omits another application of AI: Autonomous or semi-autonomous robots that do the fighting. That greatly reduces the need for population, because the AI robots are the 'boots on the ground'. And while you need manufacturing capacity to build lots of robots, likely the software would be the difficult part. Manufacturing capacity is no longer particularly expensive or exclusive - it's so inexpensive that developing countries do most of it while wealthy countries moved on to higher-skill, higher- profit industries decades ago (such as writing software), and arguably the wealthy could rebuild capacity quickly if needed. Also, victory might depend far more on AI quality than on hardware quantity. That's all speculative, of course. Who knows how it will work out. On one hand, we can't even build an AI that can drive safely on the freeway; on the other, AI might be simpler in a war zone, where safety and precision may take a back seat to destructive power - see it, shoot it - especially for the unscrupulous.
- rangibaby 8y ago
  Germany and Japan. The USSR and USA both completely dominated them in terms of industrial capacity. Germany in particular had about a 10-year head start in terms of weapons (strong tanks, jet fighters, assault rifles, drones, ballistic missiles) but simply could not build enough to make a difference. Japan had a large population and plenty of soldiers to spare at the end of WWII but again couldn’t compete with Allied manufacturing. It was a fact they were aware of before the war.
  - forapurpose 8y ago
    I agree that Germany and Japan lost principally due to relative manufacturing capacity (though we could say they lost because their strategies didn't take that into account, particularly Germany, whose attack on Russia put them even further behind). But I think that's a different question. I was looking for, > a country with wealth (and population) that lost a war due to a lack of manufacturing capacity I should have been more clear, though I think the context still conveys it: I meant, has their been a wealthy country that lost a war simply because it didn't invest in manufacturing capacity? Germany and Japan invested heavily in it, but the Allies, combined, were simply much wealthier and larger. Also, the Allied capacity in the USA wasn't reduced by bombing.

mieseratte 8y ago

> but doesn't really help with population nor materiél. To add, AI can help reduce staffing, failures, costs, etc. What it can't do is magically project force. This requires boots on the ground or a weapons system capable of reaching out and touching someone. This requires materiél, and for the initial build-up flesh-and-bone soldiers. However, there is a possible exception in the form of cyber warfare. If AI can sufficiently disrupt digital infrastructure it could hypothetically bring another power to its knees. Still, if that power can bounce back from the initial setback that AI would again become a less direct asset.

pm90 8y ago
Correct. And Cyber-based attacks are much less visible and easier to hide than overt attacks e.g. a cruise missile. But as things get more automated, the attack surface and concomitant damage will only increase. This could have very real military effects. Suppose your supply lines/defense contractors are targeted by foreign digital attackers. Even if your Military itself uses secure communications and infrastructure, if their dependents are disrupted, it will directly impact their effectiveness.

maxerickson 8y ago

Mine automation is a big deal.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

forapurpose 8y ago

Good point about materiél. When I wrote the GP, I tried to think of a country with wealth (and population) that lost a war due to a lack of manufacturing capacity and couldn't come up with one, so I stuck with 'wealth'. Honest question: Can anyone think of such a place? I'm not including countries that had manufacturing capacity but didn't use it for military purposes. > Smarter software will help equalize and hopefully reduce coordination costs (i.e. command hierarchy & effective intelligence) but doesn't really help with population nor materiél factors. That omits another application of AI: Autonomous or semi-autonomous robots that do the fighting. That greatly reduces the need for population, because the AI robots are the 'boots on the ground'. And while you need manufacturing capacity to build lots of robots, likely the software would be the difficult part. Manufacturing capacity is no longer particularly expensive or exclusive - it's so inexpensive that developing countries do most of it while wealthy countries moved on to higher-skill, higher- profit industries decades ago (such as writing software), and arguably the wealthy could rebuild capacity quickly if needed. Also, victory might depend far more on AI quality than on hardware quantity. That's all speculative, of course. Who knows how it will work out. On one hand, we can't even build an AI that can drive safely on the freeway; on the other, AI might be simpler in a war zone, where safety and precision may take a back seat to destructive power - see it, shoot it - especially for the unscrupulous.

rangibaby 8y ago
Germany and Japan. The USSR and USA both completely dominated them in terms of industrial capacity. Germany in particular had about a 10-year head start in terms of weapons (strong tanks, jet fighters, assault rifles, drones, ballistic missiles) but simply could not build enough to make a difference. Japan had a large population and plenty of soldiers to spare at the end of WWII but again couldn’t compete with Allied manufacturing. It was a fact they were aware of before the war.
- forapurpose 8y ago
  I agree that Germany and Japan lost principally due to relative manufacturing capacity (though we could say they lost because their strategies didn't take that into account, particularly Germany, whose attack on Russia put them even further behind). But I think that's a different question. I was looking for, > a country with wealth (and population) that lost a war due to a lack of manufacturing capacity I should have been more clear, though I think the context still conveys it: I meant, has their been a wealthy country that lost a war simply because it didn't invest in manufacturing capacity? Germany and Japan invested heavily in it, but the Allies, combined, were simply much wealthier and larger. Also, the Allied capacity in the USA wasn't reduced by bombing.