Founded almost two years now , the United States' space response force, the Us
Space Force, is already considering future military technologies needed to
maintain competition, if not superiority, with other armed powers. For this,
Joel Mozer, scientific consultant of the US Space Force, asserted that it was
necessary to focus scientific development on augmented humans, in order to
have a superhuman armed force in the event of potential future conflicts.
Physicist Joel Mozer, speaking at an event at the Air Force Research
Laboratory, said it was "imperative" for the United States to outdo its
adversaries in the area of "human augmentation" in military technology.
"In the last century, Western civilization has moved from an industrial
society to an information-based society, but today we are on the threshold
of a new era: the era of human augmentation."
"In our national defense enterprise, it is imperative that we embrace this
new era, lest we fall behind our strategic competitors." Mozer, whose career
with the U.S. Air Force was focused on developing space flight technology,
warned that there would be unimaginable advancements made over the next
decade, citing advances in intelligence. artificial (AI) that have already
been made in programs like Google's AlphaGo.
Delegate strategy, tactics and command to AI
The US Space Force scientist added that AI could potentially develop
military tactics and strategies inaccessible to humans, and that
"autonomous" programs or machines could possibly advise commanders in real
time. AI could create programs that design lines of attack that are too
complex for humans to understand, warned Mozer.
“This will extend to the battlefield, where commanders and decision-makers
will have several autonomous agents at their disposal, each capable of
controlling the execution of things like reconnaissance, fire control or
attack. We need to think carefully about the ethics of this and how we will
trust these Autonomous Agents, especially in the age of lethal Autonomous
Warfare.”
Augmented humans for a superhuman army
Turning to human augmentation, he suggested that augmentation technology could
eventually produce a "superhuman workforce,"using technologies such as
"augmented reality, virtual reality, and nerve stimulation." “You can put an
individual in a state of flux, where learning is optimized and retention is
maximized. This individual could be shaped into someone with high performing
potential”.
The US government has a long history of human experimentation for potential
military applications. In the 1960s, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
ran a secret program called MKUltra, which sought to test the effects of
drugs, torture, and esoteric psychological techniques on human subjects.
There is no publicly available information to suggest that the United States
has attempted to increase humans systematically so far.
However, the Pentagon's Research Department (DARPA) has undertaken projects
focusing on human augmentation, such as a skin implant capable of detecting
pathogens and a neural mesh to connect the human brain and computers.
Meanwhile, Elon Musk's Neuralink attempts to create a commercial
brain-computer interface. The biotech company recently revealed that it
allowed a monkey to play Pong with its mind using one of its proprietary
chips.