AI in Warfare: OpenAI's Policy Shift Regarding Military Usage of Its Tools

Many people have been worried about the safety concerns that Artificial Intelligence and modern technologies pose to human society. We have thousands of movies about how AI and humanoid robots take over the world and make humans their slaves. There is also a popular thought experiment dedicated to it. It is known as Roko's basilisk. "Roko's Basilisk is a thought experiment that states that an otherwise benevolent artificial superintelligence (AI) in the future would be incentivized to create a virtual reality simulation to torture anyone who knew of its potential existence but did not directly contribute to its advancement or development, to incentivize said advancement."

These are mere speculation, and at the current period and in the next decade, we will have a technology that will endanger our existence. But, I fear what I just said would be proven wrong if we keep ignoring the necessity of guidelines to regulate AI technologies and their development.

ChatGPT maker OpenAI has recently updated its Terms of Service. It has altered its usage policy to get rid of a prohibition on using its technology for "military and warfare."

Previously, one of the leading tech companies prohibited its tools and services specifically to use for "weapons development, military and warfare," but this was in action only before January 10 of this year.

OpenAI has now made changes to its policy to only disallow the use that would "bring harm to others," IT magazine Computer World first reported.

"Our policy does not allow our tools to be used to harm people, develop weapons, for communications surveillance, or to injure others or destroy property," a spokesperson from OpenAI reportedly said. "There are, however, national security use cases that align with our mission. For example, we are already working with DARPA to spur the creation of new cybersecurity tools to secure open-source software that critical infrastructure and industry depend on. It was not clear whether these beneficial use cases would have been allowed under ‘military’ in our previous policies. So the goal with our policy update is to provide clarity and the ability to have these discussions," he added.

This sudden change will now allow the company to work closely with the US military and possibly with the militaries of US allies. This will write a new chapter on the development of AI technologies and their potential uses in modern warfare and other military tools.

There are also reports that certain people and employees are skeptical of this new development and the future of working closely with the military.

Let's keep the negativities aside and discuss the positive aspects of using AI and robots to fight wars for us.

Fights will be fair

Future wars would be fought by robots. A nation can demonstrate its strength and technological superiority. There would be less chance of foul playing when an international convention is signed for the ethics of robot fighters in wars.

There will be a significant decrease in human lives

Hundreds of thousands of brave patriots lose their lives in battles. We need people like them. We need their dedication and their love for the motherland. Humans killing other humans over petty issues like land and resources sounds so ridiculous when you look at it from a general perspective.

This is true we can save countless lives by using robots to fight for us. We don't even need to wage out large-scale battles when we can just make the best fighters from both the conflicting sides to fight a death match and decide the outcome in the favor of the winning side.

Improved Accuracy and Remote Operations capabilities

Artificial fighters can take into account the direction of the wind, air pressure, temperature, muzzle velocity, drag coefficient, and various other factors, which can improve accuracy significantly.

They can also be used for remote operations and can be controlled from hundreds of kilometers away with state-of-the-art technologies.

They can be replaced quickly, can respond rapidly in times of emergency, and most important of all, the humans will not feel the emotional impact of losing comrades, and the mothers and sisters will not shed any more tears. The sons and daughters will not feel alone anymore.

That is enough talk of the future.

Some experts had already anticipated the increase in interest of the Federal Government and the US military in AI technologies in response to the Chinese authorities facilitating AI technologies developments and incorporating them into the Chinese military.

It is sad to see that the Government is prioritizing AI developments to compete with rivals when there is a strong need for an international convention to regulate this fascinating yet destructive technology.

Also published here.