FIRST ON FOX: The U.S. Army is teaming up with an artificial intelligence (AI) company to build an AI \u201cbrain\u201d for military robots that can think, understand their surroundings and continue missions even after losing contact with human operators as the race for AI dominance intensifies.
\nWorking with the Army Research Laboratory, defense AI company EdgeRunner AI has developed an onboard AI system that allows military robots to function in the battlefield without relying on cloud computing or an internet connection in environments where connectivity is lost.
\n\u201cWe like to think of robots as the next frontier of AI,\u201d EdgeRunner AI founder and CEO Tyler Saltsman told Fox News Digital.
\n\u201cThink of them as a very far-out edge device, kind of like a cell phone, a tablet or a laptop. But now what we can do is we can put a brain, or a neural network, right on that robot so that robots can have context when they\u2019re on a mission helping the warfighter.\u201d
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The partnership comes as the U.S. and China race to integrate AI into their militaries, with both countries viewing AI as critical to maintaining a technological edge in future conflicts.
\nSaltsman said it\u2019s important for the U.S. to stay ahead in the global AI race, calling China\u2019s dominance in drone manufacturing \u201cproblematic.\u201d
\n\u201cWhether or not China\u2019s ahead of us is debatable, but if China is, it\u2019s not by much,\u201d he said.
\nSaltsman said today\u2019s AI is \u201ctoo generalized,\u201d which is why his company is developing technology built for specific military missions.
\n\u201cWarfighters don\u2019t need 19th-century poetry,\u201d he said. \u201cThey need specific intelligence to his or her occupation in order to make better decisions in the heat of battle and that can increase the probability of winning the fight.\u201d
\nWorking alongside aerial drones, the AI is designed to help robots \u201cproblem solve through different routes\u201d while detecting explosives, carrying ammunition, scouting routes and reporting enemy activity.
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\u201cAs you combine them together, you get a much better clarity of the battlefield and increased situational awareness,\u201d he said.
\nWhen communications are cut off, Saltsman said the military will need autonomous systems that can continue making decisions on their own.
\n\u201cYou can have a human pilot that controls the ground robot or the drone in the air,\u201d he said. \u201cBut then if they were to be jammed by a radar jammer and lose connectivity, then the neural network on that robot can still continue the mission and still aid the warfighter.\u201d
\nSaltsman argued the military \u201ccan\u2019t rely on internet access in war,\u201d warning that depending on systems like SpaceX\u2019s Starlink could add a \u201crisk\u201d to missions.
\n\u201cThe problem with Starlink is if you use it, you\u2019re effectively showing the enemy where you are, so you might as well be wearing a beacon on you saying, \u2018Hey, here\u2019s where I\u2019m located,’\u201d he said.
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Pointing to the Russia-Ukraine war, Saltsman said the success of drones has sparked a new push for autonomous ground robots.
\n\u201cAs drones have become ubiquitous, now ground robots are like the next thing and then eventually humanoid robots so robots that move and look like humans,\u201d he said.
\nDespite the push to advance military AI, Saltsman said safety can\u2019t take a back seat and that the technology is built using \u201ctransparent\u201d datasets to \u201cunderstand the biases\u201d of the AI.
\n\u201cThat\u2019s another thing that differentiates us,\u201d he said. \u201cOne of the problems is how to use AI safely, how to put guardrails around it and how to understand it.\u201d
\nWhile the technology remains in the \u201cdevelopment phase,\u201d Saltsman said the breakthrough gives robots the ability to understand what they see, not just detect it.
\n\u201cYou can put computer vision models on robots so they can see, but if they don\u2019t understand the context of what they\u2019re seeing, they\u2019re not useful and that\u2019s what we\u2019re solving for.\u201d<\/p>\n
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