Rearview Mirror: AUKUS continues our military’s romantic projections onto drones & AI
This is my second Rearview Mirror post, which are a remembrance of things I did in the past (hello Marcel:) which have come full circle into the present in 2023.
Sometimes it seems like we learn nothing from our conversations. From 2012 when I addressed policymakers in international intervention in the UK, to this 2017 cover art for Kyle Grayson’s book on targeted killing and drones, the warnings have been clear from many well-informed people. Yet we just didn’t want to think too deeply about it. This May 2023 article by Gabriel Honrada in Asia Times triggered that sense of “again?” feeling I got reading it. His article inspired this rearview mirror reflection from my 2012 archives and the poster session Hitting The Target?
Have a read of Honrada’s article online: “AUKUS is moving to intelligent drone swarms”: Australia-UK-US alliance accelerating cooperation across high-tech fields toward aim of defeating China in a potential conflict”. After writing the as-we-must intervention jargon, he quotes Koichiro Takagi in much simpler language:
“However, the high-tech AUKUS alliance may also have profound pitfalls. In a November 2022 Hudson Institute article, Koichiro Takagi notes that AI may outpace humans in decision-making speed, citing the risk of a flash war wherein opposing AI systems start an uncontrollable chain reaction that starts a conflict or even launches nuclear missiles.
Honrada’s article notes the tendency of humans to trust AI in the heat of battle, even if evidence shows that the AI’s decisions are incorrect. Takagi mentions that throughout history, it has not been superior technology and science that has won wars but the human intelligence that uses those tools. He notes that future wars may not be determined by who has the better AI but by the innovativeness of the concepts that use it alongside human intelligence and creativity. There is a more recent article on this is Asia Times 1st September 2023 here: https://asiatimes.com/2023/09/us-drone-swarm-program-could-redefine-modern-war/
I return to these themes in my essay for VALA, the magazine for The Blake Society in London in November for which I have painted four canvases for their 2023 theme of war & peace.
[Updated 08-09-2023]
There is Nothing Like a Drone (2011) Carl Gopalkrishnan
Theme 1: What are the human and behavioural consequences of the
adoption of the new capabilities?
Romancing the drone
This painting uses a song from the Broadway musical South Pacific – ‘There is Nothing Like A Dame’ – to evoke the US (and now global) military’s romantic attachment to the drone. So the title is There Is Nothing Like A Drone (2011). The romance of this type of warfare involves the distance between those who pull the triggers and the actual death or injury of both military and civilians.
To maintain this decision-making process, you need to suspend belief. To fall in love you often overlook the flaws in your object of love. The psychological aspects of new capabilities are promoted with a flurry of emotion, fondness, awe.
Soldiers speak of these technologies in anthropomorphic terms, assigning a relationship status not unlike legislating to see corporations as ‘people’. The authors of these narratives are affecting the way in which we understand the impact of this new form of warfare - for the people on the ground that are affected by it. I ask the viewer to write their own lyrics for this song, substituting the word “drone” for “dame”.
This visual auditory point allows the viewer to fully experience the musical drama and joy in a military, policy making or a political leaders’ emotional celebration of precision technology. Such emotions are influential, but are unlikely to be attributed to new technology or new capabilities in legal discussion.
As if individuals operated within a value-neutral space – which of course they don’t.
