Headline, September 20 2024/ OPINION : ''' IPHONE VERSUS [ F-35 ] '''

 

OPINION :

 ''' IPHONE VERSUS [ F-35 ] '''

THE WORLD'S MILITARY REQUIRES unique platforms, such as stealth fighters and submarines, as well as newer technologies, including drones. All weapon systems, old or new, need to take full advantage of :

The software and A.I. revolution - a revolution driven forward primarily by Silicon Valley, not by large, defense contractors.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IS CHANGING WAR. WE ARE JUST NOT READY. Artificial Intelligence powered autonomous weapons systems are upending the very fundamental nature of warfare.

The First Matabele War, fought between 1893 and 1894, foretold the future. In its opening battle, roughly 700 soldiers, paramilitaries and African auxiliaries signed with the British South Africa Company used five Maxim guns - the world's fully automatic weapon-

To help repel over 5,000 Ndebelle warriors, some 1,500 of whom were killed at a cost of only a handful of British soldiers. The brutal era of trench warfare the Maxim gun ushered in only became fully apparent in World War 1.

Yet initial accounts of its singular effectiveness correctly foretold the end of the cavalry, a critical piece of combat arms since the Iron Age.

We stand at the precipice of an even more consequential revolution in military affairs today. A new wave of war is bearing down on us. Artificial Intelligence powered autonomous weapons systems are going global. And few militaries in the world are ready for this.

Weeks ago, the world experienced another Maxim gun moment : The Ukrainian military evacuated U.S. provided MIAI Abrams battle tanks from the front lines after many of them were reportedly destroyed by Russian kamikaze drones.

The withdrawal of one of the world's most advanced battle tanks in an A.I. powered drone war foretells the end of a century of manned mechanized warfare as we know it.

Like other unmanned vehicles that aim for a high level of autonomy, these Russian drones don't rely on large language models or similar A.I. more familiar to civilian consumers, but rather on technology like machine learning to help identify, seek and destroy targets.

Even those devices that are not entirely A.I. driven increasingly use A.I. and adjacent technologies for targeting, sensing and guidance.

Techno-skeptics who argue against the use of A.I. in warfare are oblivious to the reality that autonomous systems are already everywhere -and the technology is increasingly being deployed to these systems' benefit.

Hezbollah's alleged use of explosive-laden drones has displaced at least 60,000 Israelis south of the Lebanon border.

Houthi rebels are using drones to threaten the 12 percent of global shipping value that passes through the Red Sea, including the supertanker Sounion, now abandoned and adrift and aflame, with four times as much oil as was carried by the Exxon Valdez.

Yet, as this is happening, the world and even the Pentagon still overwhelmingly spends its dollars on legacy weapon systems. It continues to rely on an outmoded and costly technical production systems to buy tanks, ships and aircraft carriers that new generations of weapons - autonomous and hypersonic - can demonstrably kill.

TAKE for example the F-35, the apex predator of the sky. The fifth-generation stealth fighter is known as a '' flying computer '' for its ability to fuse sensor data with advanced weapons.

YET this $2 trillion program has fielded fighter airplanes with less processing power than many smartphones. It's the result of a technology production system bespoke to the military and separate from the consumer technology ecosystem.

The F-35 design was largely frozen in 2001, the year the Pentagon awarded its contract to Lockheed Martin. By the time the first F-35 was rolling down the runway, technology's state of the art had already flown far past it.

NOW, the iPhone 16 arrives. Today, the F-35 is slowly progressing through its third technology upgrade with newer, but from state-of-the art, processors.

The core issue is that this slow hardware refresh cycle prevents the F-35 from fully taking advantage of the accelerating advancement in A.I.

This is not an either/or argument. IPhones will not replace F-35s.

The Honour and Serving of the Latest Global Operational Research on '' Hurricane Artificial Intelligence '' and the state of warfare continues. The World Students Society thanks Raj M. Shah and Christopher Kirchhoff.

With respectful dedication to Leaders, Scientists, Armament Manufacturing Giants, the Global Founder Framers of !WOW!, Grandparents, Parents, and then Students, Professors and Teachers of the world.

See You all prepare for Great Global Elections on The World Students Society - the exclusive and eternal ownership of every student in the world - and for every subject : wssciw.blogspot.com and Twitter X !E-WOW! - The Ecosystem 2011 :

Good Night and God Bless

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