From its beginnings in 1956, the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been on a quest to build computers that perform intelligent tasks, and possibly computers that are intelligent.
Early AI began with a variety of tasks such as checkers and chess, speech recognition, language translation, and solving word problems. Over the years it has progressed to give us automated vacuum cleaners, robot dogs, Siri and Alexa, image recognizers, Chess and Go world masters, self-driving cars, and self-guided drones.
These technologies have powerful impacts on Naval operations and warfighting as well. AI has the potential to revolutionize military technology, capability and operations. The possibilities have raised many speculations about what AI is capable of and whether it can be trusted.
The Naval Postgraduate School (NPS), looking to shed some light on this topic for the many newcomers to AI technology, developed a seminar course and accompanying video series called Harnessing Artificial Intelligence, or HAI. A popular course among NPS students on campus, the materials are also being used by the DOD’s Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC) to support its own education programs.