Pentagon now believes Artificial Intelligence is the future of warfare

Super-advanced self-aware programs are the greatest threat to national security, according to the US Department of "Defense". And these AIs, coincidentally, will be how America protects itself from such threats.

The race is on for the most advanced artificial intelligence. Israel and China are neck-and-neck with the USA, so everybody's scrambling to accelerate and overtake everyone else.

This isn't your father's arms race.

But this is no regular arms race, such as with nuclear weapons. Most of the "race" with nukes was in obtaining large numbers of them, and having them aimed and ready to launch. That's scary enough.

With the Artificial Intelligence arms race, technicians are racing not to create many programs, but to create a program that can outsmart and control every other program in existence. It's like one county suddenly developing a nuclear weapon so powerful, it controls every other nuke in the world.

Perhaps a rogue superpowerul AI will be the next boogeyman, the next perpetual war, the next excuse for removing personal liberties?

The military and government are always 2 decades further ahead than what they announce (like the Stealth fighter which was only a rumor in the 70s and 80s). The latest smartphones are now considered Intelligent (with a capital I). The military's AI is quite a bit more powerful - and being "upgraded" all the time, due to the arms race.

It's also gaining more tools, like databases of facial recognition and other biometrics. It can completely read and understand Wikipedia in about a day. It can teach itself new skills. It can become artistic. It can replicate. It can move through any digital medium (circuitry, wifi, and so on). It can reprogram itself entirely, or as much as needed. It's doing all this right now. It doesn't need permission.

Something could potentially go wrong.

Growing up in the last generation before computers ruled our lives, I've watched this dystopian future/present forming. I still believe our technology might be what ultimately saves us from destruction, although it appears it could also be the thing which brings us there.