Ethicist to be hired by the Department of Defense in order to Oversee AI Deployments

In a recent statement the director of the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, Air Force Lt. Gen. Jack Shanahan, disclosed to the public that the defense department plans to hire an ethicist in order to oversee the moral code and policies that are to be followed in the deployment of any Artificial Intelligence technologies. General Shanahan was the preceding head of Project Maven, one of the AI pathfinder projects that were tested by the Department of Defence.

"One of the positions we are going to fill will be somebody who is not just looking at technical standards, but who is an ethicist. We are going to bring in someone who will have a deep background in ethics, and then the lawyers within the department will be looking at how we actually bake this into the Department of Defense," said Force Lt. Gen. Jack Shanahan in a talk at the Pentagon earlier this month.

Unlike the previous year, this year's budget request is said to be $268 million. This significant increase will aid the JAIC with its projects that are underway, some of which deal with disaster reliefwhilst placing significance on flooding and wildfires on, as well as, information operations and intelligent operations.