AI will play key role in future wars: IAF Vice-Chief

Vice-Chief of Air Staff Air Marshal S.B. Deo on Monday welcomed inclusion of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Defence Sector while saying that the move will add more teeth to the infrastructure of the country's defence forces.

He further said that AI will help in fighting future wars and will enhance the targets more accurately.

Addressing a stakeholders' workshop on 'Artificial Intelligence in National Security and Defence', Air Marshal Deo said, "AI helps to identify warships, aircraft, government vehicles and gun positions. I am convinced that AI will help. Our armed forces have a huge amount of data."

Earlier, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said one of the key challenges facing the country's defence forces is how to apply and use Artifical Intelligence (AI), at a time when there is a lack of infrastructure to support it.

Sitharaman said, "The task force should be able to tell us where the defence forces are today, such as bridging with the private sector. The task force should be able to tell us what is it that will encourage yet regulate the use of the AI in defence forces. The challenges identified are the lack of infrastructure to enable the use of AI. I would place cyber, nuclear and space high on this agenda."

Artificial Intelligence, which along with robotics, internet and machine learning has been billed as the dawn of the fourth industrial revolution, is a system of computers or machines that have the ability to mirror human intelligence. This means they can learn, reason and do the self-correction on its own.