Discrete, Specified, Assigned, and Bounded Problems: The Appropriate Areas for AI Contributions to National Security

The cluster of technologies associated with artificial intelligence (AI) research and development, and the implications of these technologies across the spectrum of human activity including national security, generates a blur of fast-moving technological, political, strategic, and ethical puzzles. For all their hyper-modern veneer, tracing the trajectories of historical thought associated with these puzzles offers some much-needed clarity. To this end, what follows is an overview of three relevant trajectories. While far from exhaustive, practitioners and theorists alike in national security should have a solid grounding in these thought trajectories to facilitate reasoned decisions about AI research and development.