An Exclusive Interview: DRDO's Dr. S. P. Panigrahi on the Emergence of 'Army of None' and Beyond

Prominent scientist and head of the Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (CAIR), Dr. S. P. Panigrahi  at the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) in India explained about the 'Army of None' on the future of warfare in a media interview.

According to him, the 'Army of None' reflects a future wherein warfare would no longer be strictly anchored around human soldiers physically fighting on the battlefield; instead, robotic-centered autonomous systems would dominate conflicts-smart machines which could operate independently without direct human intervention.

"From land, sea, and air, warfare has grown into the new domains of space, cyberspace, and electromagnetic spectrum. The objective too is different. It used to be territorial gain. Now we have 'cognitive warfare', wherein the idea is to affect cognition, thinking and decision-making of human beings to shape their perception in order to influence outcomes without necessarily a physical confrontation," he explained.

Speaking about such autonomous systems and their work he mentioned, "These autonomous machines are fitted with advanced sensors and AI capabilities which enable them to sense, detect and engage the adversary in real time. For instance, underwater vehicles can operate for extended periods independently, intelligent tanks can go across battlefields and make decisions on firing on their own, and drones can conduct missions of surveillance as well as attack without human pilots. In general, they go through cycles of detection, decision-making, and action-all on their own."

Explaining on how does such a change portend for military strategy and defense, Dr. Panigrahi said,"Needless to say, the military needs to evolve toward multi-domain warfare-integrating space and cyber, and the cognitive domain with traditional battlefields. Command structures will evolve to manage fleets of autonomous systems, their ethics framework of operation, and retain control if necessary. This too requires state-of-the-art research and development of advanced artificial intelligence and robotics technologies within the Indian defense ecosystem."

Human creativity, intuition, and moral judgment are unmatched, even though robots are superior in terms of processing speed, pattern recognition, and autonomous operations. "Seeing humans push boundaries, create technologies that improve defense capabilities, and open up new frontiers for innovation is fascinating."   

So far, our challenge has been to synergize human cognitive capabilities with AI and robotics in building smarter and ethical systems. The 'Army of None' is representative of a paradigm shift toward reducing human casualties and redefining how security will be maintained globally.