Senior members of the Senate Armed Companies Committee need the Pentagon to inform them extra about efforts to collaborate with the UK and Australia to develop next-generation synthetic intelligence, in accordance with a letter solely obtained by Protection One.
The AUKUS program is a trilateral technology-sharing effort between the three nations; the best-known piece of the settlement is an effort to design and construct new nuclear-powered submarines. However the second pillar of this system is arguably extra vital: a dedication to collectively develop new applied sciences in undersea warfare, cyber, quantum and notably synthetic intelligence. That features joint experiments and workouts with new AI-enabled instruments.
Lawmakers have been broadly supportive this system, however senators on each side of the aisle on the Senate Armed Companies Committee are involved that the primary pillar, as presently structured, may damage the U.S. submarine industrial base by forcing the switch of key technical data on the Virginia-class to Australia and the U.Ok. within the 2030s—nearly a decade earlier than a joint British, Australian, and U.S. submarine will be deployed.
Within the letter, the lawmakers ask various questions on AI security, corresponding to::
“Who from DOD is main the work on AI and autonomy experimentation and workouts in context of AUKUS Pillar 2;”
”If open-source software program and programs are being thought-about for participation, how will security and safety be maintained?;”
“How is the cybersecurity of the capabilities underneath improvement being addressed and what’s U.S. Cyber Command’s position?;”
And:
“How will the ‘Govt Order on the Protected, Safe, and Reliable Growth and Use of Synthetic Intelligence’ inform DOD’s strategy?”
“Mitigating dangers to adversarial AI and growing resilient, indigenous AI programs is vital to reaching the goals of the AUKUS safety partnership,” the letter notes.
In idea, answering these questions ought to be easy. The three militaries have already begun joint work on cyber safeguards for information and autonomy, in accordance with a protection ministers’ assertion from December.
“This effort builds on joint work demonstrated within the U.Ok. in April 2023 and in South Australia in October 2023. The AUKUS nations purpose to combine (Resilient and Autonomous Synthetic Intelligence Applied sciences) into nationwide applications in 2024, to pursue the speedy adoption of those applied sciences throughout land and maritime domains,” the assertion says.
The three nations have additionally launched a collection of maritime autonomous workouts and experiments. And all three nations have signed on to a key ethics pact on AI, based mostly largely on the Protection Division’s AI principlesl.
The lawmakers’ letter seeks solutions by April 12.