War on Autopilot? It Will Be Harder Than the Pentagon Thinks
By Patrick Tucker Technology Editor Read bio
February 12, 2020
Despite defense contractors’ glittering demonstrations, difficult realities are challenging the military’s race to network everything.
MCLEAN, Virginia — Everything is new about Northrop Grumman’s attempt to help the military link everything it can on the battlefield. One day, as planners imagine it, commanders will be able to do things like send autonomous drones into battle, change attack plans midcourse, and find other ways to remove humans and their limitations from decision chains that increasingly seem to require quantum speed. Northrop’s Innovation Center in McLean, Virginia, looks so new it could have sprung up in a simulation. Its Washington metro rail stop doesn’t even appear on many maps yet.
Northrop is hardly alone. Over the last few months, various weapons makers have begun showing off all sorts of capabilities to reporters, while military officials detail their own efforts to link up jets, tanks, ships, and soldiers. As they describe it, it’s a technological race to out-automate America’s potential adversaries.
https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2020/02/war-autopilot-it-will-be-harder-pentagon-thinks/163064/?oref=d-topstory
