February 12, 2018
Chinese Sub Commanders May Get AI Help for Decision-Making
What can we learn from a recent news report that China is seeking to develop a nuclear submarine with “AI-augmented brainpower” to give the PLA Navy an “upper hand in battle”?
A February 4 piece in the South China Morning Post quotes a “senior scientist involved with the programme” as saying there is a project underway to update the computer systems on PLANnuclear submarines with an AI decision-support system with “its own thoughts” that would reduce commanding officers’ workload and mental burden. The article describes plans for AI to take on “thinking” functions on nuclear subs, which could include, at a basic level, interpreting and answering signals picked up by sonar, through the use of convolutional neural networks.
Given the sensitivity of such a project, it is notable that a researcher working on the program is apparently discussing these issues with an English-language Hong Kong-based newspaper owned by Chinese tech giant Alibaba. That alone suggests that powers-that-be in Beijing intend such a story to receive attention. The release of this information should be considered critically – and might even be characterized as either a deliberate, perhaps ‘deterrent’ signal of China’s advances and/or ‘technological propaganda’ that hypes and overstates current research and development. Necessarily, any analysis based on such sourcing is difficult to confirm – and must thus be caveated heavily.
Read the full article in Defense One.
More from CNAS
-
Atomic Advantage
Executive Summary One of the most consequential national security contests now unfolds on battlefields invisible to the naked eye—across the faint radiofrequency signals of th...
By Constanza M. Vidal Bustamante
-
Semiconductor Imports and U.S. National Security
The Secretary of Commerce has initiated a Section 232 investigation to determine the effects on the national security of imports of semiconductors and semiconductor manufactur...
By Geoffrey Gertz & Caleb Withers
-
Sharper: America’s Edge
A volatile global security environment requires the United States and its allies to develop new tactics and capabilities to deal with novel global threats. On June 3, policyma...
By Charles Horn
-
Regional and Global Responses to a Taiwan Contingency
A contingency across the Taiwan Strait has the potential to reshape the Indo-Pacific and even global security environment. This report explores how states beyond the United St...
By Jacob Stokes, Kareen Hart, Ryan Claffey & Thomas Corel