AI Bibliography
AI Bibliography |
|
 |
 |
 |
|
Payne, K. (2020). Strategy, evolution, and war From apes to artificial intelligence. Air & Space Power Journal, 34(2), 93–94. |
| Resource type: Journal Article BibTeX citation key: Payne2020 View all bibliographic details  |
Categories: Artificial Intelligence, Cognitive Science, Complexity Science, Decision Theory, General, Geopolitical, Military Science, Sociology Subcategories: Augmented cognition, Autonomous systems, Chaos theory, Cross-domain deterrence, Decision making, Human decisionmaking, Mosaic warfare, Psychology of human-AI interaction, Strategy, United States Creators: Payne Publisher: Collection: Air & Space Power Journal |
| Attachments |
| Abstract |
|
Strategy, Evolution, and War is an ambitious work that outlines a broad history of strategic warfare and how it’s changed throughout human history, then uses that history to predict how artificial intelligence (AI) will change it further in the near future. Dr. Kenneth Payne, whose past work links evolutionary psychology with modern war fighting, claims that AI’s potential to make decisions based on a distinctly nonhuman psychology could change warfare more radically than anything since the development of the social human brain. He leverages the work of a strong cadre of scholars in history, behavioral economics, psychology, and international relations to provide the theoretical bases for his arguments. Payne then illustrates the advantages and dangers of AI and its effects on warfare, acknowledging its dramatic potential without succumbing to science- fiction- like exaggerations.Payne’s central thesis is that there have only been two instances in history that truly revolution-ized strategic decision- making despite the frequent use of revolution when discussing military strategy. The first revolutionary event was about 100,000 years ago when the human brain fully developed its capacity for social interaction, theory of mind, elaborate deception, and cooperation. The second event is occurring today and will be fully realized when AI is charged with making strategic decisions or autonomously carrying out strategy.The author begins by setting necessary boundaries to his work. He first limits his discussion to the strategy of warfare. A discussion of AI’s potential impact on strategy in other realms would be interesting, and the author occasionally references the other instruments of power, but such a limit is necessary to keep this already ambitious work focused on its intended topic. He also discusses the definition of autonomy in both human and AI decision- making. He questions whether an AI could ever be truly, completely autonomous, and further asks if human beings, with our uncon-scious heuristics and chemically- driven mental processes, are fully autonomous ourselves. Addi-tionally, he sets a high bar for the definition of a revolutionarydevelopment as something that changes the very foundation of warfare psychology. Finally, he discusses the psychological under-pinnings of human strategy and how they developed from an evolutionary standpoint. This section is essentially a literature review that cites other scholars in evolutionary psychology and behavioral economics, as well as the development of cultures, political systems, and wartime strategy. The competing viewpoints Payne references result in a brief yet complete overview that underpins the rest of his arguments. |