A SEMINAR on ‘Indian hegemonic design and its implications’ was organised by an NGO (Rabita Forum International) in Karachi in March last year. Addressing the seminar, the chief guest retired Vice Admiral Arifullah Hussaini said: “I think India is wasting its money on defence. The future of war does not belong to conventional methods but artificial intelligence. Whosoever uses it well will win. Therefore, we have to learn artificial intelligence.”

Both Pakistan and India are novices in the field. Even China is learning the tricks of AI from Japan. None of the countries mentioned has any local artificial intelligence firm worth the name.

The speaker’s casual remarks raised an alarm in India. It constituted a task force on how to use artificial intelligence for achieving military superiority under the Chairman of Tata Sons, N. Chandrasekaran, to judge Pakistan’s capability in the field and also design a future for India. This body was composed of multiple stakeholders including the government, the defence services, academia and industry. It presented a report after five months to the defence minister.

The Indian media published some portions of the report. Their defence ministry admits: “AI has the potential to have transformative impact on national security and is essentially a dual use technology. While it can fuel technology-driven economic growth, it also has potential to provide military superiority.”

The ministry issued guidelines for Indian companies to venture into research projects to develop or upgrade weapon systems and in turn reduce imports in this field, particularly in the fields of aviation, naval, land systems, cyber, nuclear and biological warfare.

One hopes Pakistani authorities are aware of Indian advancements in the field of cyber warfare.

J. Amjed
Rawalpindi

Published in Dawn, July 3rd, 2018