New Ministry of Defence Report Suggests Artificial Intelligence Can Provide "Military Superiority"

The Artificial Intelligence (AI) Task Force of the Ministry of Defence led by Tata Sons Chairman N. Chandrasekaran on Saturday submitted its final report to Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on using AI for military superiority. "The Task Force handed over the final report to Raksha Mantri Nirmala Sitharaman to accept it and to implement its recommendations," the Ministry of Defence said in a statement.

The Task Force was constituted in February 2018 to study the strategic implications of AI in national security perspective and in a global context. It is a multi-stakeholder group comprising members from government, services, academia, industry and start-ups.

"AI has the potential to have transformative impact on national security. It is also seen that AI is essentially a dual-use technology. While it can fuel technology-driven economic growth, it also has potential to provide military superiority," the statement said.

The government wants to leverage the country's strong IT industry and huge talent pool of engineers. The ministry has initiated the process of preparing Indian defence forces in their use of AI and how these capabilities can be increasingly developed within the country.

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The report, which studied the level of AI or machine learning (ML) development in India mainly in the context of defence needs, suggested making India a significant power of AI in defence specifically in the area of aviation, naval, land systems, cyber, nuclear and biological warfare. It made recommendations for policy and institutional interventions that are required to regulate and encourage a robust AI-based technologies for defence sector in the country.

Considering that most AI work is happening in private sector, it made recommendations to work with start-ups and commercial industry in the field of use of AI for defence purposes, the release said.

As part of its deliberations, the Task Force had intensive deliberations with all stakeholder representatives including officers from Army, Navy, Airforce, Coast Guard, representatives of all Defence PSUs, namely BEL, HAL, BEML, BDL, MIDHANI, MDL, GRSE, GSL and HSL and OFB.

Defence Minister is the main promoter and patron of the AI Task Force.

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