SANTA MONICA, Calif. — A new study from the Rand Corporation has predicted that artificial intelligence (AI) will become smarter than the average human in general measures of intelligence in as little as 10 years and smarter than the average United States Marine in 5.
“Our findings indicate that AI already became smarter than machine gunners and second lieutenants sometime in 2019,” lead researcher Dr. Linda Bradley said. “Although they’re outliers, so we had to exclude them from the data. One cannot really consider a lieutenant to be ‘intelligent’ in the classical sense of the word.”
The study found that, although AI will overtake Marines in intelligence in 5 years, it will still not be smart enough to be considered an “artificial general intelligence,” or AGI. It will still be a “narrow AI” that can only accomplish specific tasks.
“At the five-year mark, AI will only be able to understand specific rote tasks programmed into it by engineers or its platoon sergeant,” Bradley said. “Just like a Marine, it won’t have the broad cognitive abilities we typically associate with human intelligence.”
Marine Corps leaders are still planning a strategy for dealing with AI in future force planning. If it can perform essential warfighting duties such as picking up cigarette butts in the parking lot, standing barracks duty, and scuzz brushing bulkheads, it might be able to replace a significant portion of the workforce.
“From everything I’ve seen, AI is much less likely than Marines to get a DUI or divorce,” Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. David Berger said. “If we can figure out a way to make it do pull-ups too, then I’m all for it.”
But as promising as AI is, Berger admits it also presents challenges.
“My main worry,” he said, “is that AI will become smart enough that it will decide never to enlist in the first place.”
Dark Laughter contributed reporting.