The U.S. is alarmingly close to an autonomous weapons arms race

Weapons systems that think for themselves remain in their infancy, but geopolitical pressures and mistrust may force them into use prematurely. One of the Pentagon’s primary jobs is anticipating what the wars of the future will look like so that it can allocate the resources necessary to make sure the U.S. has the edge in those battles. When people in the defense industry talk about the tools of future war, they usually mention applications of AI, autonomous weaponry, and a very...