ARL chief scientist: Intelligent battlefield will present challenges for warfighter

Human cognition will be "severely challenged" by the complexity of a future fight, according to Alexander Kott, the Army Research Laboratory's chief scientist.

Kott said today he envisions a battlefield in which all elements -- from weapons to munitions -- have some form of intelligence. Miscommunication is inherent in this kind of battlefield, as humans and cyber do not mix well, he said at an industry cybersecurity conference.

"Each [intelligent thing] can be a target, and each one can be a threat," he said.

Modernization and cybersecurity go hand in hand in Kott's view; he said artificial intelligence "will be the thing that fights cyber attacks." However, "the AI we have now is not smart enough" to do so, he continued, suggesting that method of defense is far off.

The director of the Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center emphasized the importance of AI earlier this month, saying the Army needs to acquire the technology quickly and has plans to use it in annotated data sets for training vehicles to drive a certain way.