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AI Warfighting Is Dangerous, Lethal, Costly Without Protections
Killer robots threaten to become the immoral and destabilizing norm unless urgent action is taken to curtail the military use of artificial intelligence (AI), according to a Public Citizen report released today.
The report, “A.I. Joe: The Dangers of Artificial Intelligence and the U.S. Military,” details a host of novel problems and concerns that arise as the U.S. military increasingly relies on and operationalizes AI systems, in addition to the dangers posed by autonomous weapons – “killer robots” programmed to make their own decisions about use of lethal force. These risks include:
- The possible launch of nuclear weapons by automated systems;
- Reliance on AI intelligence processing that increases the use of violence; and
- Battlefield deepfakes.
This analysis is timely, as the Department of Defense (DoD) just requested $300 million for its first installment of drones under the Replicator Initiative, a program to fund and deploy fleets of many small “attritable” weapons to out-compete China in the domain of AI-empowered systems. In addition, recent on-the-ground reports show that Israel has used AI-assisted technologies in its drone strike campaign on Gaza. AI-supported warfighting is not science fiction; it is already here.
New Silicon Valley AI tech firms are campaigning for new Pentagon spending on AI weapons and technology. Following the longstanding practices of old-line military contractors, firms like C3.ai, Anduril Industries, Rebellion Defense, and Palantir are working the revolving door and the Washington influence game. A singular figure driving the campaign for more Pentagon reliance on AI is Eric Schmidt, the former Google executive who is now heavily invested in the sector.
“Desperate to feed at the Pentagon trough, a new set of AI military contractors is urging the Pentagon to recklessly embrace dangerous AI technologies,” said Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen. “We need safeguards in place – including a ban on autonomous lethal weapons – before these corporations become entrenched in the military-industrial complex and it’s too late.”
“AI technologies are advancing faster than the everyday American can track,” said Savannah Wooten, People Over Pentagon advocate at Public Citizen. “The risk of empowering the U.S. military to become a tech-enabled killing machine is sky-high. We have months, not years, to demand that no AI systems are permitted to launch nuclear weapons, kill without human oversight, or generate deepfakes that undermine global democracy.”
“AI absolutely cannot become the next military spending ‘Gold Rush’. The Pentagon is rife with waste and excess spending as it is,” Wooten added. “If top brass wants to fund AI advancements, they must strategically reinvest their own budget, not demand billions more in taxpayer funding.”
Key recommendations from the report include:
- The U.S should pledge not to develop or deploy autonomous weapons, and should support a global treaty banning such weapons;
- The U.S. should codify the commitment that only humans can launch nuclear weapons;
- Deepfakes should be banned from the battlefield; and
- Spending for AI technologies should come from the already bloated and wasteful Pentagon budget, not additional appropriations.
Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that champions the public interest in the halls of power. We defend democracy, resist corporate power and work to ensure that government works for the people - not for big corporations. Founded in 1971, we now have 500,000 members and supporters throughout the country.
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Dems Rip Musk-Ramaswamy Plan for Spending Cuts as Illegal 'Power Grab'
"The legal theories being pushed by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are as idiotic as they are dangerous," said the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee.
Nov 22, 2024
Democrats on the House Budget Committee said Friday that the plan Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy outlined to eliminate spending already appropriated by the U.S. Congress would run afoul of a federal law enacted in response to former President Richard Nixon's impoundment of funds for programs he opposed.
In a Wall Street Journalop-ed published earlier this week, Musk and Ramaswamy specifically mentioned the 1974 Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act (ICA) only to wave it away, arguing it would not hinder their effort to enact sweeping spending cuts as part of the "government efficiency" commission President-elect Donald Trump appointed them to lead.
But House Budget Committee Democrats said Friday that the Nixon-era law and subsequent Supreme Court rulings make clear that "the power of the purse rests solely with Congress."
"Fifty years after the ICA became law, Congress once again confronts a threat attempting to push past the long-recognized boundaries of executive budgetary power," the lawmakers wrote in a fact sheet. "During his first administration, President Trump illegally impounded crucial security assistance funding for Ukraine in an effort to benefit his reelection campaign. Now, Donald Trump and his far-right extremist allies are pushing dangerous legal theories to dismantle that system."
"They want to give the president unchecked power to slash funding for programs like food assistance, public education, healthcare, and federal law enforcement—all without congressional approval," the Democrats continued. "American families would be forced to pay more for basic necessities, investment in infrastructure and jobs would decline, and our communities would become less safe. Instead of working within the democratic process, Trump and his allies want to sidestep Congress entirely. But the Constitution is clear: only Congress, elected by the people, controls how taxpayer dollars are spent."
"House Democrats are ready to fight back against any illegal attempt to gut the programs that keep American families safe and help them make ends meet."
The fact sheet was released days after Musk and Ramaswamy, both billionaires, offered for the first time a detailed explanation of their plan to pursue large-scale cuts to federal regulations and spending, as well as mass firings of federal employees, in their role as co-heads of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
The pair noted that Trump "has previously suggested" the ICA is unconstitutional and expressed the view that "the current Supreme Court would likely side with him on this question." The former president appointed half of the court's right-wing supermajority.
"But even without relying on that view, DOGE will help end federal overspending by taking aim at the $500 billion-plus in annual federal expenditures that are unauthorized by Congress or being used in ways that Congress never intended, from $535 million a year to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and $1.5 billion for grants to international organizations to nearly $300 million to progressive groups like Planned Parenthood."
Other programs that would be vulnerable if Musk, Ramaswamy, Trump, and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.)—who's set to lead a new related House subcommittee—get their way are veterans' healthcare, Head Start, housing assistance, and childcare aid, according toThe Washington Post.
Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, said in a statement Friday that "the legal theories being pushed by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are as idiotic as they are dangerous."
"Unilaterally slashing funds that have been lawfully appropriated by the people's elected representatives in Congress would be a devastating power grab that undermines our economy and puts families and communities at risk," said Boyle. "House Democrats are ready to fight back against any illegal attempt to gut the programs that keep American families safe and help them make ends meet."
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Amid Fears That World War III Has Already Begun, Russia Strikes Ukraine With New Missile
“I really believe the situation is very dangerous,” said one Russian politics expert during a week in which the two countries exchanged strikes.
Nov 22, 2024
Voices on both sides of the war between Russia and Ukraine have issued ominous statements during a week when the two countries traded escalatory missile strikes.
Russia launched a strike on the Ukrainian city of Dnipro using an experimental, hypersonic missile Thursday, according to Russian President Vladimir Putin. The attack followed Ukrainian strikes on Russian territory using western-made, long-range missiles.
"This is an escalation," said Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center toldThe New York Times. "I really believe the situation is very dangerous."
Moscow's missile was fired using a conventional warhead but "it could be refitted to certainly carry ... different types of conventional or nuclear warheads," Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh said. Singh also described it as an "intermediate range ballistic missile."
Initial reports from Ukrainian officials said that the strike was an intercontinental ballistic missile, in contrast to Putin's characterization of the missile. According to the Financial Times, officials from Ukraine, Russia, NATO, and the U.S. have offered different exact classifications for the weapon.
Putin, in a televised address, made clear that the move was in response to Ukraine's use of western-made weapons to strike deeper into Russia.
The Ukrainian government had long sought the permission of western governments to use weapons like American-made Army Tactical Missile Systems, or ATACMS, and U.K.-produced Storm Shadow missiles. The U.S. began supplying the Lockheed Martin-produced ATACMS earlier this year, according to Defense One, but imposed restrictions on their use due to the escalatory implications of Ukraine using them to strike targets far inside Russian territory.
Ukraine launched strikes using both of those weapons this week following a policy shift from the Biden administration allowing their use, which at least one foreign policy expert cautioned was a "needlessly escalatory step."
"From that moment, as we have repeatedly underscored, a regional conflict in Ukraine previously provoked by the West has acquired elements of a global character," Putin said in his address, according to Reuters.
The comments come days after Putin also codified a change to the country's nuclear doctrine that lowered the threshold for potential nuclear weapons use.
Meanwhile, on the Ukrainian side, the country's former military commander Valery Zaluzhny offered a bleak prognosis of the war earlier this week, saying that he "believe[s] that in 2024 we can absolutely believe that the Third World War has begun."
The comments were in reference to the fact that Russia is enlisting the help of outside allies, such as North Korea, in its military effort.
Elsewhere, foreign policy experts cautioned against escalatory spiral.
Anatol Lieven, the director of the Eurasia Program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, offered an argument against what he sees as the underlying rationale of allowing Ukraine to attack Russia with U.S. and U.K.-supplied long range missiles.
"The official argument for the ATACMS and Storms Shadows decision is to put Ukraine in a stronger position before peace talks are initiated by Trump," he wrote in a piece published Thursday. "This is a dangerous gamble, because the missiles (which are guided to their targets by U.S. personnel) risk infuriating Russia without giving really critical help to Ukraine."
U.S. intelligence analysts have also warned that granting Ukraine the ability to use U.S., French and U.K.-supplied long-range missiles could prompt forceful retaliation by Russia; additionally, analysts cautioned that the missiles would likely not fundamentally change the course of the war.
In a similar vein to Lieven, Matt Duss, the executive vice president of the Center for International Policy and Robert Farley, an assistant professor at the University of Kentucky, argued in the pages of Foreign Policy this week that U.S. policymakers should pursue a negotiated peace for Ukraine, in part because "Ukraine does not have a path to a straightforward victory."
"If Trump makes good on his promise to end the war, supporters of Ukraine must be clear about the principles at stake and be careful not to let maximalist aims foreclose a durable negotiated settlement. We say this with the knowledge of what conceding Ukrainian territory to permanent Russian control could mean, and has already meant, for Ukrainians in those territories," they wrote.
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UN Program's 2025 Outlook Warns 343 Million Acutely Food Insecure
"Global humanitarian needs are rising, fueled by devastating conflicts, more frequent climate disasters, and extensive economic turmoil," said WFP executive director Cindy McCain. "Yet funding is failing to keep pace."
Nov 22, 2024
The World Food Program offered a stark warning for the coming year Friday in its assessment of the escalating global hunger crisis: Due to climate catastrophe and violent conflicts around the world, without adequate funding, "2025 will be a year of unrelenting crises" that drive more people into food insecurity and starvation.
In the WFP 2025 Global Outlook, the agency emphasized that protecting more than 100 million people from devastating hunger in the coming year would require a relatively small investment—$16.9 billion, "roughly what the world spends on coffee in just two weeks."
That amount is a fraction of what the world's wealthiest countries—particularly the United States—put toward military spending in a year.
In total, the WFP found that 343 million people in 74 countries are acutely food insecure—a 10% increase from last year.
"Global humanitarian needs are rising, fueled by devastating conflicts, more frequent climate disasters, and extensive economic turmoil. Yet funding is failing to keep pace," said Cindy McCain, WFP executive director.
With $16.9 billion, the WFP said it could assist 123 million people who are most vulnerable to extreme hunger.
Among those are 1.9 million people who "are on the brink of famine," including those in Gaza, where access to food has been decimated in the last 13 months by Israel's near-total humanitarian aid blockade, repeated forced displacements, and U.S.-backed bombardment of the enclave. Many people in Gaza are now eating just one meal per day, and the United Nations this week warned of a "stark increase" in the number of households facing severe hunger in the southern and central parts of the territory.
More than 90% of people in Gaza are now "acutely food insecure," with 16% living in "catastrophic conditions," according to the United Nations.
"We urgently need financial and diplomatic support from the international community: to reverse the rising tide of global needs, and help vulnerable communities build long-term resilience against food insecurity."
People in Haiti and the sub-Saharan African countries of Mali, Sudan, and South Sudan were also identified as being most at risk for extreme hunger, with the region called "ground zero" for the humanitarian crisis.
Over 170 million people in sub-Saharan Africa are "acutely" food insecure, said the WFP. The region "accounts for 50% of WFP's projected funding needs in 2025," driven by climate extremes as well as violent conflicts in Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and the Sahel region.
The U.N. Famine Review Committee in August declared that famine had taken hold in a camp where hundreds of thousands of people live in North Darfur, Sudan, after being forcibly displaced by the civil war there.
The U.N. also reported on Thursday that 25.6 million people in the DRC—or 1 in 4—now suffer from "crisis or worse" levels of hunger, driven partially by fighting between armed groups.
"In such a fragile context, the cost of inaction is truly unthinkable," said Peter Musoko, WFP country director and representative for DRC. "Together, we need to work with the government and the humanitarian community to increase resources for this neglected crisis."
Across Asia and the Pacific, WFP said the hunger crisis facing 88 million people is caused largely by "increasingly frequent climate disasters."
In Afghanistan, approximately 12.4 million people faced acute food insecurity last month, linked to the "devastation caused by heavy rainfall and flooding."
The severe impact of Typhoon Yagi in Myanmar led to "even more displacement" and food insecurity, compounding the effects of an escalating civil war, and nearly 6 million people in eastern Bangladesh were also affected by severe flooding this year.
"At WFP, we are dedicated to achieving a world without hunger," said McCain. "But to get there, we urgently need financial and diplomatic support from the international community: to reverse the rising tide of global needs, and help vulnerable communities build long-term resilience against food insecurity."
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