Recently disclosed documents from the United States’ National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) revealed the existence of a formerly classified artificial brain project called Sentient, reported The Verge.
Sentient, which has been previously alluded to in speeches and presentations, has only existed in classified and top-secret documents. However, the documents were released by the NRO under the Freedom of Information Act.
The research span decades, with some going as far as October 2010, after the NRO requested white papers for Sentient Enterprise. One of the disclosed documents showed that the project reached its very first research and development landmark in 2013.
Specific details were not uncovered as these were redacted. When The Verge asked the BRO’s Office Public Affairs, deputy director Karen Furgerson refused to comment.
The artificial brain, which is an omnivorous analysis tool, remains to be relatively unknown to the public.
Furgerson remarked, “The NRO has not said much about Sentient publicly because it is a classified program and NRO rarely appears before Congress in open hearings.”
‘A thinking system’
This artificial brain is developed to be a system that “thinks.” Furgerson explained, “It ingests high volumes of data and processes it. Sentient catalogs normal patterns, detects anomalies, and helps forecast and model adversaries’ potential courses of action.”
The documents revealed that Sentient has the potential to make satellites more efficient. Moreover, it can take on the tasks usually performed by humans and help make the process more productive by letting humans focus on deeper analyses.
It can tap into the wealth of information from various sources for analysis. With its military connection, it has a network that helps it “connect the dots.”
The Verge noted that there may be some disadvantages to this development, which remain undiscernible as deeper information are yet to be disclosed.
Furgerson defended this saying, “The NRO’s and the Intelligence Community’s standard practice is to NOT disclose sensitive sources and methods, as such disclosure introduces a high risk of adversary nations’ countering them.”
She further noted that “such loss harms our nation and its allies; it decreases US information advantage and national security. For those reasons, details about Sentient remain classified and what we can say about it is limited.”
Aside from the US’ Sentient, other countries also saw further development in the field of AI, said the Silicon Republic. A United Kingdom restaurant deployed a robotic waiter called Theresa May or “The Maybot.”
Meanwhile, Japan’s Toyota also revealed several robots for the upcoming Olympic and Paralympic Games.
