The United States Defense Department is going to spend up to $2 billion on artificial intelligence (AI) weapons over the next five years. This will be the most the department has ever spent on AI systems for weapons. The department wants to have the most advanced weapons in the world. It wants its weapons to be better than those of China and Russia. Defense bosses want future weapons to be trusted and accepted by military generals and commanders. They want to make sure weapons in the future do not make mistakes. Department official John Everett said: "We think it's a good time to seed the field of AI. We think we can accelerate two decades of progress into five years."

在未来五年，美国国防部将斥资20亿美元用于实现人工智能（AI）武器。这将是该部门用于武器AI系统最大的一笔支出。该部门希望拥有世界上最先进的武器。它希望自己的武器比中国和俄罗斯的更加先进。国防部领导层希望军队将领和指挥官能够信任并接受未来武器。他们希望确保未来这些武器不出差错。国防部官员约翰·埃弗里特说道：“我们认为现在是开发AI领域的好时机。我们认为我们可以加快脚步将20年项目缩至5年。”

Some of the new AI weapons may be able to make and act on their own decisions. This means computer systems and algorithms could make a decision (without any human decision-making) to attack a target that could kill people. Many people think this is dangerous and could lead to innocent lives being lost. The Defense Department said AI technology could, "make it possible to develop and [use] autonomous systems that could independently select and attack targets with [deadly] force". It added that weapons using AI systems can currently choose targets on their own, but military commanders do not want to let the weapons decide on the targets to attack. The commanders want to make the final decision.

一些新式AI武器或许可以自己做决定并执行自己的决定。这意味着电脑系统和算法可以决定（不需要任何人为决策）对目标进行致命攻击。很多人认为这样很危险，而且可能会导致无辜人丧命。国防部表示AI技术可以“使开发和使用自动系统成为可能，自动系统可以独立选择并使用致命威力攻击目标。”国防部还称，使用AI系统的武器当前可以自己选择攻击目标，但是军队指挥官并不想让武器决定攻击目标。指挥官想做最终的决定。