When Russia invaded Ukraine, one of the questions it raised was whether this war would prove to be a testing ground for AI- better or worse. Beyond deep fakes technology and Russia’s misinformation assault, AI and ML can be found in weapons on both sides. For instance, Russia has flaunted a powerful drone that can identify targets using AI. At the same time, Ukraine has used Conversational facial recognition software. 

According to Will Knight, senior writer for Wired covering AI, we are now heading towards a brave new world where many new technologies are going to shake up the way wars are fought. With the war between Russia and Ukraine, we are starting to see a glimpse of this new world. Moving ahead, there will be a lot of technologies that can be developed much more quickly. These new technologies will be more accessible and change the nature of weapons technologies. They will even have the capacity to change some dynamics of the countries with the most military power. 

Spreading misinformation that is being used as a tool in the war. Recently, an article spoke about what Aleksandra Przegalinska, the AI expert and Polish university administrator, came across when he opened her Facebook account. One of the information she saw on the newsfeed was a post from a Russian troll spreading disinformation. As someone who follows the status of the war, she knew that what she saw on her newsfeed was not valid. In Przegalinska’s opinion, search engines prioritize the information that can potentially generate conflict and controversy. If the search engines find that a person is interested in the conflict, they can promote content related to it. 

AI-enabled services in war 

Reuters reported that Ukraine is using facial recognition software developed by Clearview AI. Clearview is a provider of AI services related to facial recognition. Use their platform and provide imagery through a device or a regular internet connection. The software can come up with their best guess as to the actual identity information of the face supplied to them. Ukraine is using this technology to identify Russian soldiers, whether captured, in transit or even deceased. Using this technology, they also notify the family members of the diseased. 

There are lethal Russian drones ins Ukraine, a weapon that uses AI. This is different from usual drones. These drones, which are much lower cost, can incorporate new technologies such as Computer Vision. It is not yet clear whether this drone is using that to target individuals or specific vehicles. But manufacturers of the drone boast they can do that. These technologies are similar to the ones that we find on an iPhone that if you search for a particular object, it will identify that. However, in Will Knight’s opinion, these technologies in this situation are not entirely reliable and can work in opaque ways. 

Disinformation, AI and war 

Some users on social media want to go viral and make money by spreading Putin’s agenda. They are even using war videos with old videos to create false information about what is going on. There are credible posts about war offered from real accounts, but many appear to be unverifiable. The spreading of disinformation about war is not new. However, the use of AI and ML model to be sources of disinformation is new. Since ML capabilities are the foundations of social media, anyone can use these platforms to try to sway the opinions of masses of people. There are AI-generated humans or deepfakes as well. Twitter and Facebook took down profiles of AI-generated humans claiming to be from Ukraine. In such a scenario, the public needs to pay close attention to the news because it is hard to know what is real and fake. 

Sources:

EurAsian Times

Tech Target

WNYC

Fortune