Pentagon Expands Role of AI in Military Target Selection

The Pentagon has developed a new internal doctrine that grants more authority to artificial intelligence in the process of target selection and engagement. According to this new doctrine, AI may be able to initiate operations in the future and potentially lead to the use of fully autonomous systems in the long term. However, officials emphasize that control remains with the command hierarchy. Documents obtained by Bloomberg indicate that the US Department of Defense has updated its military target selection strategy to expand the role of AI-based systems. The new doctrine aims to significantly increase the weight of AI in operation planning and target identification. While current military rules require operations to be initiated directly by human initiative, the new principles open the door to systems where AI can act under human supervision. The statement "The increasing speed of battle in the future and the advances of our competitors in the field of AI may necessitate the use of fully autonomous systems by the US military" is another notable point in the document. A US Joint Chiefs of Staff official stated that the change in target selection strategy is the result of years of comprehensive work and lessons learned from the field. A senior Pentagon official noted that current AI technologies do not select and engage targets on their own, saying