https://crsreports.congress.gov
Updated November 14, 2022
Defense Primer: Emerging Technologies
Both the 2022 National Defense Strategy and senior U.S.
defense and intelligence officials have identified a number
of emerging technologies that could have a disruptive
impact on U.S. national security in the years to come. These
technologies include
artificial intelligence,
lethal autonomous weapon systems,
hypersonic weapons,
directed energy weapons,
biotechnology, and
quantum technology.
As these technologies continue to mature, they could hold
significant implications for congressional oversight, U.S.
defense authorizations and appropriations, military concepts
of operations, and the future of war.
Artificial Intelligence
Although the U.S. government has no official definition of
artificial intelligence, policymakers generally use the term
AI to refer to a computer system capable of human-level
cognition. AI is further divided into three categories:
narrow AI, general AI, and artificial superintelligence.
Narrow AI systems can perform only the specific task that
they were trained to perform, while general AI systems
would be capable of performing a broad range of tasks,
including those for which they were not specifically trained.
Artificial superintelligence refers to a system that could
exceed human-level cognition across most tasks. General
AI systems and artificial superintelligence do not yet—and
may never—exist.
Narrow AI is currently being incorporated into a number of
military applications by both the United States and its
competitors. Such applications include but are not limited
to intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; logistics;
cyber operations; command and control; and semi-
autonomous and autonomous vehicles. These technologies
are intended in part to augment or replace human operators,
freeing them to perform more complex and cognitively
demanding work. In addition, AI-enabled systems could (1)
react significantly faster than systems that rely on operator
input, (2) cope with an exponential increase in the amount
of data available for analysis, and (3) enable new concepts
of operations, such as swarming (i.e., cooperative behavior
in which unmanned vehicles autonomously coordinate to
achieve a task) that could confer a warfighting advantage
by overwhelming adversary defensive systems.
Narrow AI could, however, introduce a number of
challenges. For example, such systems may be subject to
algorithmic bias as a result of their training data or models.
Researchers have repeatedly discovered instances of racial
bias in AI facial recognition programs due to the lack of
diversity in the images on which the systems were trained,
while some natural language processing programs have
developed gender bias. Such biases could hold significant
implications for AI applications in a military context.
Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems
Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems (LAWS) are a class
of weapon systems capable of independently identifying a
target and employing an onboard weapon system to engage
and destroy the target without manual human control.
LAWS require computer algorithms and sensor suites to
classify an object as hostile, make an engagement decision,
and guide a weapon to the target. This capability would
enable the system to operate in communications-degraded
or -denied environments where traditional systems may not
be able to operate.
LAWS are not yet in widespread development, and some
senior military and defense leaders have expressed concerns
about the ethics of ever fielding such systems. For example,
in 2017 testimony before the Senate Armed Services
Committee, then-Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
General Paul Selva stated, “I do not think it is reasonable
for us to put robots in charge of whether or not we take a
human life.” Currently, there are no domestic or
international legal prohibitions on the development of
LAWS; however, an international group of government
experts has begun to discuss the issue. Approximately 30
countries have called for a preemptive ban on the systems
due to ethical considerations, while others have called for
formal regulation or guidelines for development and use.
DOD Directive 3000.09 establishes department guidelines
for the development and fielding of LAWS to ensure that
they comply with “the law of war, applicable treaties,
weapon system safety rules, and applicable rules of
engagement.”
Hypersonic Weapons
Hypersonic weapons—which fly at speeds of at least Mach
5—are in development in a number of countries, including
the United States. There are two categories of hypersonic
weapons:
Hypersonic glide vehicles (HGV) are launched from a
rocket before gliding to a target. (When HGVs are
mated with their rocket booster, the resulting weapon
system is often referred to as a hypersonic boost-glide
weapon.)
Hypersonic cruise missiles (HCM) are powered by
high-speed engines throughout the duration of their
flight.
In contrast to ballistic missiles, hypersonic weapons do not
follow a ballistic trajectory and can maneuver en route to
their destination, making defense against them difficult.
Currently, no such defense against hypersonic weapons
