Last month, OpenAI published a usage study showing that nearly 15 percent of work-related conversations on ChatGPT involved “decision making and problem solving.” Now comes word that at least one high-ranking member of the US military is using LLMs for the same purpose.
At the Association of the US Army Conference in Washington DC this week, Major General William “Hank” Taylor reportedly said that “Chat and I have been very close lately,” using a disturbingly familiar diminutive to refer to an unspecified AI chatbot. “AI is something that has been very interesting to me as a commander.”
Military-focused news site DefenseScoop reports that Taylor told a roundtable group of reporters that he and the Eighth Army he leads from South Korea “regularly” use AI to modernize their predictive analytics for logistics planning and operational purposes. That's helpful for paperwork, like “just being able to write our weekly reports and stuff,” Taylor said, but it also helps determine their general direction.
“One of the things I've been working on personally with my Soldiers lately is decision making – individual decision making,” Taylor said. “And how [we make decisions] in our own individual lives it is important when we make decisions. So that's something I've been asking and trying to build models to help all of us. Special, [on] How do I make decisions, personal decisions, right? that impact not only me, but my organization and overall readiness?”
That's still a long way from Terminator vision of autonomous AI weapon systems that take lethal decisions out of human hands. Still, the use of LLMs for military decision-making could be a cause for concern for anyone familiar with the models' well-known tendency to fabricate false quotes and sycophantically flatter users.
