At the threshold of a dramatic escalation in new warfare technologies, Flash Wars takes an international perspective on the disturbing rise of lethal autonomous weapons.
AI's proponents promise greater efficiency and a dramatic increase of operational speed. So dramatic in fact that observers fear that AI-driven conflicts could escalate faster than human actors will be able to intervene. They point to scenarios from the financial markets where so called “Flash Crashes” – triggered by competing algorithms – have become frequent, but remain little understood.
Exploring the profound philosophical, legal, ethical, and material implications artificially intelligent instruments of death, Flash Wars features the insights of roboticists, soldiers, hackers, engineers, and others who all bring unique perspectives to this new paradigm of global conflict. Alternating between enthusiasm for technologies that could mitigate the need for human troops at a time when enlistment in the Western world is at historic lows, and existential horror for a future that could permit robots to kill without any human oversight, the film tracks the rise of intelligent machines in conflict zones around the world — from the trenches in Ukraine to the streets of New York and from the depths of cyberspace to the inner workings of the human brain.
In just a few years, many things that once seemed like science fiction have now become reality. In March 2022, a Russian kamikaze drone controlled by artificial intelligence known as a ZALA KYP is shot down in Kiev. In response, the US supplies their own models to Ukraine, and private firms donate satellite internet and AI-surveillance software that can track combatants and looters. Russia threatens to hit the UK with an autonomous nuclear torpedo, while China watches carefully from the sidelines and emerging high-tech powers like Turkey strike deals with both sides. Meanwhile the US continues to funnel lucrative defense contracts to private entities driven by profit in a landscape characterized by lagging regulation, and provides lethal military surplus to police departments across the country. The AI arms race that experts had warned about for years has finally arrived, shaping not only battlefields abroad, but also the ways we think about security at the "home front", and the methods by which governments manufacture consent for foreign wars among their citizenry by weaponizing consumer data.
Will humanity lose control over its war machine? Or can we, at a time of saber-rattling unprecedented in the modern era, recognize the unique dangers posed by weaponized AI and change course?
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