May 08, 2026
| The US Defense Department has publicly allocated at least $75 billion to AI-driven programs since 2016, funding drone footage analysis, autonomous targeting and weapons systems. At the center of it all is Project Maven, a public-private effort launched in 2017 that brought Silicon Valley into the Pentagon's war-fighting apparatus. There is evidence Anthropic's Claude was used in the military raid that captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. The Pentagon is also reportedly using AI to generate hundreds of strike options in Iran. But the tech is already showing real limits and raising ethical questions. AI helps identify targets and speed up strike decisions, but algorithms fail when the battlefield changes. The more humans are removed from the process, the harder it becomes to catch mistakes before they become casualties. How far will the Pentagon go, and at what cost? |
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