AI on the Battlefield: An Experimental Exploration

Book One

Volume

Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 18

Emerging Applications

The US Army Battle Command Battle Lab conducted an experiment with the ICCES system -- an integrated decision aid for performing several critical steps of a US Army Brigade Military Decision Making Process: from capturing a high-level Course of Action to producing a detailed analysis and plan of tasks. The system integrated several available technologies based largely on AI techniques, ranging from qualitative spatial interpretation of course-of-action diagrams to interleaved adversarial planning and scheduling. The experiment dispelled concerns about potential negative impacts of such tools on the creative aspects of the art of war, showed a potential for dramatic time savings in the MDMP process, and confirmed the maturity and suitability of the technologies for near-future deployment.