Computing, research, and war: if knowledge is power, where is responsibility?

In the United States, artificial intelligence (AI) research is mainly a story about military support for the development of promising technologies. Since the late 1950s and early 196Os, AI research has received most of its support from the military research establishment [37, 55]. 1 Not until the 1980s, however, has the military connected this research to specific objectives and products. In 1983, the $600-million Strategic Computing Program (SCP) created three applications for "'pulling' the technology-generation process by creating carefully selected technology interactions with challenging military applications" [16]. These applications, an autonomous land vehicle, a pilot's associate, and a battle management system, explicitly connect the three armed services to further AI developments [29, 51, 53]. The Defense Science Board Task Force on the "Military Applications of New-Generation Computer Technologies" recommended warfare simulation, electronic warfare, ballistic missile defense and logistics management as also promising a high military payoff [18]. In his 1983 "Star Wars" speech, President Reagan enjoined "the scientific community, . . . those who gave us nuclear weapons, . . . to give us the means of rendering these nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete" [43]. As in the Manhattan and hydrogen bomb projects, AI researchers and more generally computer scientists are expected to play major parts in this quest for a defensive shield against ballistic missiles. Computing specialists such as John von Neumann played a supportive role by setting up the computations necessary for these engineering feats—with human "computers" for the atom bomb [10] 2 and with ENIAC and other early computers for the hydrogen bomb [9]. The "Star Wars" project challenges computer scientists to design an intelligent system that finds and destroys targets—basically in real-time and without human intervention. The interdependence of the military and computer science rarely surfaces during our education as computer practitioners, researchers, and teachers. Where might information concerning these important military applications enter into computer science and AI education? Where do students receive information concerning the important role they may play in weapon systems development? One of our students recently remarked that "as a computer science major, I did not realize the magnitude of the ramifications of advancing technology for the military . . . . In a field so dominated