The Use of AI in the U.S. Military - Humanitarian Aid

Regardless of how one feels about it, the arms race has begun. However, don’t feel like the world is about to end; the military does more than just fight battles:

• The U.S. Army provides medical assistance where needed. (Vergun, 2018)
• The U.S. Army provides aid to disaster victims around the world. (Nakahara, 2015)
• U.S. Army engineers bring modern technology to disaster areas. (Rogers, 2018)

The way the world evaluates and takes actions on these kinds of crises are improved with AI. The world’s ability to respond to humanitarian needs can be re-envisioned with AI. AI and ML give us the ability to collect, analyze, and use data more efficiently. As we enter the age of AI, the future of humanitarian assistance is bright.

One in nine people globally are impoverished and live in hunger daily; many live this way as a result of challenges with the government or natural disasters. “The UN World Food Programme (WFP) is the leading humanitarian organization fighting hunger worldwide. Assisting 80 million people in over 80 countries each year, WFP delivers food assistance in emergencies and works with communities to improve nutrition and build resilience.” (World Food Programme, 2018) AI can assist with the life-saving work of WFP. After disasters, such as earthquakes, floods, and tsunamis, shortages often occur, local infrastructure is in disarray, and information on the extent of the damages if often lacking.

WFP is looking into how self-flying vehicles and UAVs will gather information about disaster areas This will help with the logistics of delivering resources “to areas that are difficult to reach or too dangerous to enter.” (Green & Papasidero, 2017) With the recent wide availability of automated flight drones, and lightweight sensors and data gathering technologies, the ability to conduct long-range reconnaissance on a disaster area has never been easier. Companies, like Airobotics, have started offering fully automated systems that include a swiss army knife array of capabilities for the drones with fully automated flight patterns and battery swapping. This new technology is already providing a wide array of services, including security, surveillance, and emergency response (Fenigson, 2017). One can only imagine how WFP could use this system to assist after rapid-onset disasters, such as earthquakes, floods, and tsunamis. Access to reliable real-time data is imperative for first responders. Only with this information can they fully grasp how extensive the impact of the disaster was.

AI can assist with communication with the companies or people that need to be reached. AI can act as an automated operator, interacting with customers and employees to allow for better internal and external communication. This allows people to get an instant response to real questions even when a customer service representative is not immediately available. Customer service personnel deal with a lot of redundant issues; someone resolves them the same way over and over. Things like needing to know how to request medical assistance to an area, when a relief package will arrive, or need to know how something works, are all on-going monotonous conversations that AI can handle better, more efficiently, and maybe even more reliable than a human that was called in early and hasn’t had their first break or second cup of coffee. Imagine hundreds or thousands of first responders all asking the same questions, and a team of ten or twenty operators needing to manage the flood of questions. This is attainable inputting the questions and answers into an automated response system that has the intelligence to correlate a question asked a dozen ways to the correct answer.

In regions suffering from hunger and starvation, AI transforms the playing field. Smallholder farmers comprise a large portion of the world’s hungry and impoverished. Helping farmers produce stronger, healthier, and more yielding crops will truly make a difference. This is a huge step in the right direction for eradicating hunger worldwide. AI has already been used for years to automate planting, watering, and harvesting for large, corporate farmers. Impoverished areas won’t be familiar with the technology nor will they have the means to setup automated farming. However, getting smallholder farmers information will be the difference that they need to make a difference in their region. Organizations and corporations would have to fund the UAVs, low-cost sensors, and satellite imagery that will be used to collect information about crop status, soil conditions, and weather. AI will analyze the collected data and the farmers will learn when to fertilize, leading to increased crop yields and market value. This is known as smart agriculture; a practice already common in first world nations and starting to be picked up by smaller countries (Punch News Group, 2018).

References

• Fenigson, E. (2017, MAy 28). The Sky’s the Limit: How a Certified Automated Drone System is Revolutionizing UAVs. Retrieved from Airobotics: https://www.airoboticsdrones.com/blog/skys-limit-certified-automated-drone-system-revolutionizing-uavs/
• Green, J., & Papasidero, N. (2017, May 15). Unlocking Artificial Intelligence to beat Hunger. Retrieved from Innovation Accelerator - World Food Programme: https://innovation.wfp.org/blog/unlocking-artificial-intelligence-beat-hunger
• Nakahara, T. (2015, October 15). JGSDF celebrates anniversary at Camp Zama. Retrieved from U. S. Army: https://www.army.mil/article/89148
• Punch News Group. (2018, March 29). Six amazing artificial intelligence advances in agriculture. Retrieved from Punch: http://punchng.com/six-amazing-artificial-intelligence-advances-in-agriculture/
• Rogers, G. (2018, January 9). Army engineers bring vital electricity to Puerto Rico with microgrid technology. Retrieved from U. S. Army: https://www.army.mil/article/198831
• Vergun, D. (2018, June 26). Army provides rural Salvadorans with much-needed medical care. Retrieved from U. S. Army: https://www.army.mil/article/207696
• World Food Programme. (2018). Overview. Retrieved from World Food Programme: http://www1.wfp.org/overview