Let loose the (robo) dogs of war
Written by JAMIE LOWTHER-PINKERTON Photography by SKYE STUDIOS
During the recent conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, drone technology appears to have proved decisive in defeating conventional armoured forces – tanks, to you and me. This suggests that we are entering one of those periods when the equilibrium between offensive and defensive technologies on the battlefield becomes mismatched; the latest chapter in the old story of longbow versus knight, machine gun against mass infantry attack, carrier-borne aircraft and battleship.
Some experts – military, academic and scientific – believe this to be merely the most recent swing of the pendulum and that enhanced electronic defensive suites and a correction of tactics will restore the balance, just as compensating technologies and changes in military philosophy have done in the past.
But has the paradigm shifted for good this time? Does the galloping potential of artificial intelligence, machine-learning, space and, in due course, quantum computing – that latest Holy Grail – mean that there will be no place for human beings on the frontline? If it does, is that not wholly a good thing? Or should we have concerns about delegating warfighting, however sordid a business it is, to a new warrior cast of autonomous super-machines?
What of those military operations ‘less’ than general war, the regular fare of Britain’s armed forces, such as peace support under the United Nations or in coalition with others, countering hostile insurgency and terrorism and helping communities across the widest spectrum of activity, from building Nightingale hospitals through to providing emergency flood relief? Machines assuredly have their part to play in all these, particularly in the fields of data collection, planning, information/intelligence, and logistics. But what of that universal lynchpin, winning hearts and minds? Can a machine do that? Without a crystal ball it is impossible to provide sure answers to any of these questions except, perhaps, the last.
To me, though, the most fundamental debate, which underpins all others, is whether or not we are falling into a trap that has ensnared military planners throughout history, that of focussing on finding solutions to what has already happened and not what is happening or about to happen. By this I mean to challenge the assumption that we still have any freedom to decide, or limit, the involvement of emerging technologies in the military and cyber spheres. It seems to me that the Great Powers – not just China, but America too – have long since thrown open that particular stable door.
To understand the potential implications – and complications – of that, it’s worth comparing the views of two great British scientists and thinkers: Sir Roger Penrose and James Lovelock. They are both optimists when it comes to machines and humans rubbing along together, but their optimism flows from very different well-springs.
“If this sounds like advocating a re-run of competitive Dreadnought-building or the nuclear arms race then, sadly, maybe it is.”
Sir Roger is comforting. His vision involves a world where machines never catch up, can never be truly creative or have independence of thought. They will always be slave to a human master. Professor Lovelock is less so. He sees a future in which machines show a benign tolerance of human beings, much as I have for my Norfolk terriers: if they are good then they can sit on the sofa, even with dirty feet; but if they make a persistent habit of chasing sheep, or attacking each other, it could ultimately lead to me having to decide on a oneway trip to the vet.
Sir Roger has a Nobel Prize in physics. I have a U in physics O-level. On this issue, however, I veer from his scholarship toward Lovelock’s (reassuring myself that the latter probably did not get a U). My point, though, is that if two such great minds can’t agree, what hope have the rest of us of finding ground firm enough on which to base such critical decision-making? No hope. Therefore, we have to follow another age-old military adage and plan for the worst.
If this sounds like advocating a re-run of competitive Dreadnought-building or the nuclear arms race then, sadly, maybe it is. One more British scientist and entrepreneur, the founder of technology leaders Autonomy and Darktrace, Dr Mike Lynch: ‘if we are not out there at the head of the field when the key breakthroughs are made, there will be no chance of catching up, none whatsoever. We join the fellowship of tech superstates or we are nowhere.’ To be nowhere in a world where Xi’s China has won the race doesn’t bear thinking about. The Chinese Communist Party is not holding back from applying every technological advantage it has to predatory cyber and military ends. If we believe it could be otherwise we are deluding ourselves.
Lynch, too, is an optimist: Britain is, ‘akin to a country sitting on vast oil reserves,’ – the reserves being our science-academic institutions, our outstanding tech base and R&D, and our world-beating tech innovators. ‘We have done the hard bit,’ he says. The US, China, and Britain in that order, lead the field, with good distance between themand the peloton. And we don’t have to cross the finish line first on everything. One thing would do – something that all others are dependent on and, in defence terms, deterred by us having.
So, if we are to answer all those other questions, we need first to understand the nature of the race and the high stakes involved and dispel any cosy notions that the seismic technological advances of the next decade will be ring-fenced from offensive use by our enemies. We in the West need to win the race, but we also need to be clear-sighted about what we may be unleashing in the process.
I began by talking tanks. The Chief of the Defence Staff in his annual address to the Royal United Services Institute in December said, ‘I hate to disappoint, but the tank is not yet dead,’ or words to that effect. Maybe not, but in Nagorno-Karabakh it was read the last rites.
“The Chief of the Defence Staff in his annual address to the Royal United Services Institute in December said, ‘I hate to disappoint, but the tank is not yet dead.’”
Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton
Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton is Senior Advisor at Audley. He was Principal Private Secretary to TRH The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry from 2005-2013. Before that, he was a consultant designing security solutions for NGOs working in conflict and post-conflict regions. He is an Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton MBE Senior Advisor at Audley advisor to the HALO Trust, a trustee of the Royal Foundation of TRH The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, and an Hon Master of the Bench of Middle Temple. Previously, Jamie was an officer in the British Army, initially in the Irish Guards and then in the Special Air Service (SAS).