The Defense Department could be the first user of self-driving vehicles that run on artificial intelligence platforms in support of logistics operations, Bloomberg reported Monday.
“We’re going to have self-driving vehicles in theater for the Army before we’ll have self-driving cars on the streets,†Michael Griffin, defense undersecretary for research and engineering, told lawmakers at a congressional hearing in April.
“But the core technologies will be the same,†he added.
Griffin, a 2018 Wash100 recipient, noted that service personnel who perform fuel and food deliveries and provide other logistics support account for at least 50 percent of casualties on the battlefield.
“If that can be done by an automated unmanned vehicle with a relatively simple AI driving algorithm where I don’t have to worry about pedestrians and road signs and all of that, why wouldn’t I do that?,†he added.
Some of the tech companies that develop self-driving vehicles include General Motors, Alphabet’s Waymo unit and Uber Technologies, according to the report.
