Experts urge US Air Force to build trust in AI for countering drones — Defense News
The US military needs to build operators’ trust in artificial intelligence systems used to counter drones, as decisions must be made within seconds during a large-scale attack. Epirus Chief Technology Officer Michael Hyatt said this during a counter-drone panel at the Air and Space Cyber Conference, Defense News reports.
Time to make a decision
According to Hyatt, discussions about countering unmanned aerial vehicles often focus on the cost asymmetry of strike capabilities. However, for the duty officer directly assessing the threat, the key issue is preserving a limited stock of interceptors.
Hyatt noted that trust in the system becomes critical when drones attack in large numbers and response time is reduced to seconds. In his view, the operator must be confident that directed-energy capabilities can strike a target with a low risk of collateral damage, a low cost per shot, and without expending scarce interceptors.
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The human role in the system
According to Hyatt, artificial intelligence in counter-drone systems should initially be used with a human in the decision-making loop. In the future, a human will initiate this loop and later remain outside the system’s direct operating loop. He called practical work to build trust in such solutions the main task.
Panel participants also noted that building such trust is difficult while the defense industry is still developing rules for regulating artificial intelligence. At the same time, they believe that the US military must prepare to counter fast and reckless enemy AI agents that may operate without similar oversight.
Digital Force Technologies Chief Technology Officer Colton Wood said that defense must constantly evolve as threats change. Otherwise, he said, defense forces will always be acting with a delay.
