5 ms·

We need to invest in defense not in AI.

by tiberius_p 2y ago

_ink_ 2y ago
Sadly, AI will be needed for defense.
- tiberius_p 2y ago
  Yes, but what kind of AI? LLM chatbots or military robotics? LLMs seem to be drawing most of the money these days and I don't think that should be the focus of the EU. We need advanced drones and anti-drone defense systems, advanced air defense against hypersonic missiles and glided aviation bombs, high precision artillery systems, anti-tank weapons. I don't see LLMs making any breakthroughs in those fields. Maybe transformer neural networks can be tuned to solve some prediction problems in these areas. Maybe some vision models can be tuned to detect and track aerial threats, or movements of troops. My point is, we need investment in AI for defense not in customer support chatbots. Unless it's chatbots that generate smart military moves on the battle field...we don't need them. Let the Americans and the Chinese play with their chit-chatbots. We have bigger fish to fry.
FinnLobsien 2y ago
both
- moffkalast 2y ago
  Roger roger
guiriduro 2y ago
Yes, that's what the arms manufacturers want. Let's not do (much of) that.
- rad_gruchalski 2y ago
  why not? we’ll be throwing rainbow flags at Russians when they decide to invade?
  - sgt101 2y ago
    More likely "reparations" - €500bn a year or we're coming to Berlin ! Genuinely - this is a one way bet for the Russians, smash up Estonia and extort the Germans, spend the money on more guns and then kill all the Poles. Coming to a continent near you soon!
    - ivewonyoung 2y ago
      UK and France(along with the US) have nukes, so it's a much different scenario than WW2.
      - tmnvdb 2y ago
        France and the UK have nukes precisely because they did not believe that a country would be willing to risk total destruction to protect another country.
        sgt101 2y ago
        in every contingency - this is correct I think. It's been very important to the Nato stance to have multiple nuclear armed states, it made Soviet calculations extremely difficult. With the USA leaving the alliance I think that either a joint Euro bomb needs to be developed or Germany needs to acquire one. Perhaps a polite fiction (continuing the current one by the USA) of France providing nukes for German, Dutch, Danish and Polish war planes could be used.
      - sgt101 2y ago
        But will the UK and France bail out Germany? Yes: if Germany acts as a serious and honest partner in defence. No: if Germany refuses to be a responsible security player and swings back to Russia as soon as it can. If Germany reopens the gas pipelines and throws the balts to the wolves I think that they may find that when they need help, there will be no help. Also the UK and France have very limited nuclear capability. Yes, it's really helpful in the context of the Nato alliance. The uncertainty that the european weapons adds into any calculus of escalation really enhances the overall deterrent. Once the USA is out of the picture there is no escalation ladder, it's national extinction (and)or bust. Very unstable, untenable. I see no evidence at all of this position being altered or updated. If Germany could depend on France or the UK in a nuclear blackmail scenario then I would expect (at the least) a crash tactical nuclear weapon program to be up and running in either one or both. I also think that a four vessel continuous deterrence capability is inadequate, so I would expect much more co-ordination between France and the UK on the at sea element and/or a shift to five+ vessels. I see none of this - the opposite in fact.
- tmnvdb 2y ago
  This does not seem like a very good basis for rational policy.
  - ossobuco 2y ago
    What's the basis then? Who should we listen to, Von Der Leyen?
    - tmnvdb 2y ago
      We should probably consider the policies and weigh their pros and cons.
      - ossobuco 2y ago
        A good rule of thumb for me is to never listen people who profit from war when they tell you we need to prepare for war.
- singularity2001 2y ago
  people (even here) lack the fantasy to guarantee peace without armament.
  - tmnvdb 2y ago
    Fantasy is precisely the right word.
jajko 2y ago
I agree, I think they are trying to cargo-cult Silicon Valley ecosystem without realizing that it will never have a chance in European's clueless bureaucracy, massive social safety nets etc. It doesn't mean nothing can be built, but it won't ever be as effective and bleeding edge for various good and bad reasons and mere fraction of whatever goals aimed for. And defense spending is a must, how in 2025 they could NOT invest easily 5% of GDP into security is beyond me, thats not a bad requirement from trump actually (if some time is given to reshuffle budgets). There are threats from all sides - one genocidal dictator on our borders repeatedly keeps stating how he will wipe out few hundreds of millions with atomic bombs aimed at our cities. Inner threats with Hungary and Slovakia now. Then there are global threats, be it China or maybe even US if trade wars will go on 100%, and who knows what Turkey actually wants. Yet Leyden's blind focus on green deal when whole world literally abandoned it, killing our industries while making 0 difference long term is... I don't have a nice word for it. If there is actually some sound logic behind those moves she failed remarkably with communicating them to literally everybody.
- rdm_blackhole 2y ago
  They can't invest 5% of GDP in defense because they don't have the money. Germany does not want to raise it's debt ceiling and France is basically broke and hasn't had a functioning government for the last 7 months. NATO has been treated as a free ride by Europe. They were supposed to invest a certain % of their GDP each year in their defense spending but because the US was always there as backstop, they basically never did. Now a lot of countries in the EU have to play catch up and make up the under investment of the last 20 years which will take many years and even possibly decades before it is reversed. Also Macron is on his way out and the most likely politician to come after him is from the far right. His voice and power is waning and since he has lost the majority in the assembly, he is a lame duck with very little power to change things.
  - rvnx 2y ago
    The irony is that if we don't invest into defense, war would still likely break-out, but we may suffer less (or die less) because of a quick loss. Now we have a weak army in the EU, if Russia invades one of our friends, then the war will be over in two days because France, Germany, USA will do their usual "we condemn blablabla, we send you prayers and sympathy", but there would be no long-lasting war. A bit similar to Ukraine, it's a half-assed initiative, drowning billions of USD, but not efficient enough. If the answer had been much stronger, it would have worked, but now we get the worst of the two options (doing nothing, or going all-in). Also not to forget, that at the end of the rifle, it's not people saving their house, it's about protecting a system that supports the wealth of politics. The main difference for the invaded people would be to whom they pay taxes, and ironically, could now be facing sanctions from their supposed friends (like the living folks in Crimea, who got punished by US/EU; punished because they have been invaded and victims of a war). In the second case, if EU defense is increased moderately (like currently plans), war would still breakout but it may drag for longer, and casualties without increasing odds of winning. The third case, where EU alone without the US is significantly stronger than China, Russia and North Korea, it's nice but I don't see it happening. Like you said, Macron is likely going to be replaced with pro-Russian Le Pen / Zemmour-like. The world is getting dangerous.

We need to invest in defense not in AI.

_ink_ 2y ago

Sadly, AI will be needed for defense.

tiberius_p 2y ago
Yes, but what kind of AI? LLM chatbots or military robotics? LLMs seem to be drawing most of the money these days and I don't think that should be the focus of the EU. We need advanced drones and anti-drone defense systems, advanced air defense against hypersonic missiles and glided aviation bombs, high precision artillery systems, anti-tank weapons. I don't see LLMs making any breakthroughs in those fields. Maybe transformer neural networks can be tuned to solve some prediction problems in these areas. Maybe some vision models can be tuned to detect and track aerial threats, or movements of troops. My point is, we need investment in AI for defense not in customer support chatbots. Unless it's chatbots that generate smart military moves on the battle field...we don't need them. Let the Americans and the Chinese play with their chit-chatbots. We have bigger fish to fry.

FinnLobsien 2y ago

both

moffkalast 2y ago
Roger roger

guiriduro 2y ago

Yes, that's what the arms manufacturers want. Let's not do (much of) that.

rad_gruchalski 2y ago
why not? we’ll be throwing rainbow flags at Russians when they decide to invade?
- sgt101 2y ago
  More likely "reparations" - €500bn a year or we're coming to Berlin ! Genuinely - this is a one way bet for the Russians, smash up Estonia and extort the Germans, spend the money on more guns and then kill all the Poles. Coming to a continent near you soon!
  - ivewonyoung 2y ago
    UK and France(along with the US) have nukes, so it's a much different scenario than WW2.
    - tmnvdb 2y ago
      France and the UK have nukes precisely because they did not believe that a country would be willing to risk total destruction to protect another country.
      - sgt101 2y ago
        in every contingency - this is correct I think. It's been very important to the Nato stance to have multiple nuclear armed states, it made Soviet calculations extremely difficult. With the USA leaving the alliance I think that either a joint Euro bomb needs to be developed or Germany needs to acquire one. Perhaps a polite fiction (continuing the current one by the USA) of France providing nukes for German, Dutch, Danish and Polish war planes could be used.
    - sgt101 2y ago
      But will the UK and France bail out Germany? Yes: if Germany acts as a serious and honest partner in defence. No: if Germany refuses to be a responsible security player and swings back to Russia as soon as it can. If Germany reopens the gas pipelines and throws the balts to the wolves I think that they may find that when they need help, there will be no help. Also the UK and France have very limited nuclear capability. Yes, it's really helpful in the context of the Nato alliance. The uncertainty that the european weapons adds into any calculus of escalation really enhances the overall deterrent. Once the USA is out of the picture there is no escalation ladder, it's national extinction (and)or bust. Very unstable, untenable. I see no evidence at all of this position being altered or updated. If Germany could depend on France or the UK in a nuclear blackmail scenario then I would expect (at the least) a crash tactical nuclear weapon program to be up and running in either one or both. I also think that a four vessel continuous deterrence capability is inadequate, so I would expect much more co-ordination between France and the UK on the at sea element and/or a shift to five+ vessels. I see none of this - the opposite in fact.
tmnvdb 2y ago
This does not seem like a very good basis for rational policy.
- ossobuco 2y ago
  What's the basis then? Who should we listen to, Von Der Leyen?
  - tmnvdb 2y ago
    We should probably consider the policies and weigh their pros and cons.
    - ossobuco 2y ago
      A good rule of thumb for me is to never listen people who profit from war when they tell you we need to prepare for war.
singularity2001 2y ago
people (even here) lack the fantasy to guarantee peace without armament.
- tmnvdb 2y ago
  Fantasy is precisely the right word.

jajko 2y ago

I agree, I think they are trying to cargo-cult Silicon Valley ecosystem without realizing that it will never have a chance in European's clueless bureaucracy, massive social safety nets etc. It doesn't mean nothing can be built, but it won't ever be as effective and bleeding edge for various good and bad reasons and mere fraction of whatever goals aimed for. And defense spending is a must, how in 2025 they could NOT invest easily 5% of GDP into security is beyond me, thats not a bad requirement from trump actually (if some time is given to reshuffle budgets). There are threats from all sides - one genocidal dictator on our borders repeatedly keeps stating how he will wipe out few hundreds of millions with atomic bombs aimed at our cities. Inner threats with Hungary and Slovakia now. Then there are global threats, be it China or maybe even US if trade wars will go on 100%, and who knows what Turkey actually wants. Yet Leyden's blind focus on green deal when whole world literally abandoned it, killing our industries while making 0 difference long term is... I don't have a nice word for it. If there is actually some sound logic behind those moves she failed remarkably with communicating them to literally everybody.

rdm_blackhole 2y ago
They can't invest 5% of GDP in defense because they don't have the money. Germany does not want to raise it's debt ceiling and France is basically broke and hasn't had a functioning government for the last 7 months. NATO has been treated as a free ride by Europe. They were supposed to invest a certain % of their GDP each year in their defense spending but because the US was always there as backstop, they basically never did. Now a lot of countries in the EU have to play catch up and make up the under investment of the last 20 years which will take many years and even possibly decades before it is reversed. Also Macron is on his way out and the most likely politician to come after him is from the far right. His voice and power is waning and since he has lost the majority in the assembly, he is a lame duck with very little power to change things.
- rvnx 2y ago
  The irony is that if we don't invest into defense, war would still likely break-out, but we may suffer less (or die less) because of a quick loss. Now we have a weak army in the EU, if Russia invades one of our friends, then the war will be over in two days because France, Germany, USA will do their usual "we condemn blablabla, we send you prayers and sympathy", but there would be no long-lasting war. A bit similar to Ukraine, it's a half-assed initiative, drowning billions of USD, but not efficient enough. If the answer had been much stronger, it would have worked, but now we get the worst of the two options (doing nothing, or going all-in). Also not to forget, that at the end of the rifle, it's not people saving their house, it's about protecting a system that supports the wealth of politics. The main difference for the invaded people would be to whom they pay taxes, and ironically, could now be facing sanctions from their supposed friends (like the living folks in Crimea, who got punished by US/EU; punished because they have been invaded and victims of a war). In the second case, if EU defense is increased moderately (like currently plans), war would still breakout but it may drag for longer, and casualties without increasing odds of winning. The third case, where EU alone without the US is significantly stronger than China, Russia and North Korea, it's nice but I don't see it happening. Like you said, Macron is likely going to be replaced with pro-Russian Le Pen / Zemmour-like. The world is getting dangerous.