Modern armed forces are being built with AI and human control

In his presentation entitled “The connection between the Hungarian military and AI” delivered at an event in the House of Music Hungary, the minister said, among others, that a deteriorating environment had developed as a result of epidemics and wars raging in the world as well as illegal migration; at the same time, a technological revolution is taking place in parallel, which holds both dangers and opportunities.

In his opinion, something that is new cannot necessarily be called good, but having said that, he also highlighted that the developments provided by AI should be used in the defence industry, and in connection with that, he called for cooperation with Hungarian businesses, because, as he said, this also provides multiple opportunities for them as well.

The minister said that obviously, AI is a major help for the armed forces primarily in the field of reconnaissance, but its use is also significant with regard to data processing and the survey of geographical terrain conditions.

He added that for the most part, these devices help the decision-makers’ work and the support of military operations, and in many instances, they have a decisive role in changing combat situations.

He pointed out that by entering a complicated combat situation in a given case, AI proposes the most effective way, and that these digital devices have also appeared in the field of logistics.

According to Kristóf Szalay-Bobrovniczky, however, even the thorniest moral issues may arise, for example when the soldier, i.e. man himself is no longer needed in a war for defeating and destroying the enemy in a war, as the AI system is already capable of doing so by itself. Due to these scruples, the minister called for the development and introduction of proper regulation.

At the same time, he was of the opinion that this is an existing reality, and without doubt, the operation of unmanned systems can have several advantages concerning the losses, so less men may be needed in the interest of protecting life, and the risk of error is reduced as well.

On a related note, he recalled the events of the Gaza Strip last October, when all the digital equipment needed for defence were available to the Israel Defence Forces, yet the system remained disruptible due to the fact that the men were present in insufficient numbers.

Military requirements must be met in the developments in all cases, and the Hungarian defence industry is seen in another role due to the impact of AI – pointed out Kristóf Szalay-Bobrovniczky, who also emphasized that he considers it desirable if those working in this field cooperate and join forces with each other.