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Use of artificial intelligence by the United States Department of Defense

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 4, 2026
Entity authorityQ138673787 ↗
Source-derived summary

The United States Department of Defense has been analyzing and employing military applications of artificial intelligence since at least 2014. The program initially focused on drones and other robots, but has also been using large language models for military research and analysis. The current US policy on lethal autonomous weapons is Department of Defense Directive 3000.09, updated in January 2023.

Background

The United States Department of Defense began developing lethal autonomous weapons as early as the Reagan administration. An early version of the Tomahawk missile could have been used to destroy Soviet ships without direct human control; the initiative was abandoned after the United States and the Soviet Union signed START I. By 2014, the United Kingdom, Israel, and Norway had already begun using missiles equipped with artificial intelligence systems. The Department of Defense established a policy on the use of artificial intelligence in 2012.

History

2016–2017: Carter secretaryship

In May 2016, secretary of defense Ash Carter stated that his Third Offset strategy would include utilizing artificial intelligence as a military advantage. The New York Times reported that year that the Department of Defense had tested an autonomous drone at an approximation of a Middle Eastern village at Camp Edwards. Deputy secretary of defense Robert O. Work, who advocated for developing artificial intelligence, told the Times that the United States needed to compete with China and Russia by having a tactical advantage they could not easily replicate. The initiative was developed by DARPA beginning in 2015.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Use of artificial intelligence by the United States Department of Defense” as open-knowledge reference entry. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2014, 2023, 2012, 2016—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where artificial, intelligence and United can be independently traced.
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The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as open-knowledge reference entry. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q138673787. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2014, 2023, 2012 and 2016.

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This entry incorporates text from “Use of artificial intelligence by the United States Department of Defense” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.