WASHINGTON: In order to strike a blistering 1,000 targets in the first 24 hours of its attack on Iran, the U.S. military leveraged the most advanced artificial intelligence it’s ever used in warfare, a tool that could be difficult for the Pentagon to give up even as it severs ties with the company that created it, the Washington Post reported. The military’s Maven Smart System, which is built by data mining company Palantir, is generating insights from an astonishing amount of classified data from satellites, surveillance and other intelligence, helping provide real-time targeting and target prioritisation to military operations in Iran, according to three people familiar with the system.
Embedded into the system is Anthropic’s AI tool Claude, a technology that was banned by the Pentagon last week after heated negotiations over the terms of its use in war. Over the last year, military planners have seen Claude, paired with Maven, mature into a tool that is in daily use across most parts of the military, according to two of the people.
The military will continue using its technology as it waits for a replacement to be phased in, said two of the people. The use of advanced generative AI in the Iran campaign arrives at a moment of fierce debate over the ethics and speed of using such tools in warfare.
