The US military is using Google’s TensorFlow AI systems for one of its drone projects.

The systems are being used by the US Department of Defense’s (DoD) Project Maven to examine the array of footage shot by US drones.

Drew Cukor, chief of the DoD’s Algorithmic Warfare Cross-Function Team, said in a statement: “People and computers will work symbiotically to increase the ability of weapon systems to detect objects.

Machine learning technologies

“Eventually we hope that one analyst will be able to do twice as much work, potentially three times as much, as they’re doing now. That’s our goal.”

Project Maven has spent US$7.4billion on data processing by the DoD, AI and data processing.

A Google spokesperson added to The Guardian: “This specific project is a pilot with the Department of Defense, to provide open source TensorFlow APIs that can assist in object recognition on unclassified data. The technology flags images for human review and is for non-offensive uses only.

“Military use of machine learning naturally raises valid concerns. We’re actively discussing this important topic internally and with others as we continue to develop policies and safeguards around the development and use of our machine learning technologies.”

Written by Leah Alger