Air Force workers at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado, United States, July 2010
Rick Wilking / Reuters

Gunpowder. The combustion engine. The airplane. These are just some of the technologies that have forever changed the face of warfare. Now, the world is experiencing another transformation that could redefine military strength: the development of artificial intelligence (AI).

Merging AI with warfare may sound like science fiction, but AI is at the center of nearly all advances in defense technology today. It will shape how militaries recruit and train soldiers, how they deploy forces, and how they fight. China, Germany, Israel, and the United States have all used AI to create real-time visualizations of active battlefields. Russia has deployed

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