Top Israeli defense official says AI a 'game changer' for future warfare

Israel Defense Ministry Dir.-Gen. Eyal Zamir emphasized on Tuesday that artificial intelligence would transform future warfare. 

“AI isn’t just another innovation, it is a complete game-changer,” Zamir assessed in a speech at the defense tech summit at Tel Aviv University. “The future battlefield will allow swarms of mixed combat units, men and unmanned systems fighting together or fully autonomous units operating as one, capable of making their own decisions,” he continued. 

While envisioning a future of military integration between AI technologies and humans, Zamir argued that AI is likely to dominate various aspects of warfare within the next decade.

“In the next ten to fifteen years, maybe sooner, AI robots in land, air and sea will dominate a fully networked battlefield.” Given the rapid development of AI technology, Zamir believes the State of Israel needs to  “embed these new abilities to be more efficient and save lives.”

Brig.-Gen. (res.) Daniel Gold, head of the Israeli Defense Ministry’s Directorate of Defense and the inventor of the Iron Dome missile defense system, explained how aerial defense systems are changing national security. 

“Air and missile defense is changing the world. Arrow 3 was operated for the first time against a missile launched from Yemen at a distance of more than 1,500 km,” Gold stated. “We are continuously improving our air and missile defense systems; during the war alone, we implemented dozens of system improvements.”

Gold added that the Ministry of Defense collaborated with “dozens of startups in the field” regarding performance improvements amid the war. 

“We created a methodology for integrating a startup in the field, something the world is still trying to figure out,” he explained. Since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack last year, the Israeli military has reportedly cooperated with 86 Israeli startups and smaller companies on various tech-related projects worth some $168 million.

Col. Nir Weingold, head of Planning, Economics & IT for the Defense Ministry further assessed the applications of AI in contemporary and future warfare. 

“We see these trends in the US mainly deploying AI whether it is for connectivity, robotics, or large language models used for intelligence and other missions,” Weingold said. “We will bring artificial intelligence to the edge and bring these capabilities to the battlefield,”

For example, AI technology has greatly enhanced the Israeli military’s abilities to rapidly compile a vast list of terror targets in real-time. 

“We see defense tech as a growth engine, similar to how we developed into a startup or cyber nation we will be the defense tech nation,” he added.

Israel has emerged as a global leader in the field of artificial intelligence. While AI plays a vital role in modern warfare, its significance in civilian applications is also rapidly growing.

In his UN speech in September 2023, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the rapid development of the AI revolution. 

“The AI revolution is progressing at lightning speed. It took centuries for humanity to adapt to the agricultural revolution. It took decades to adapt to the industrial revolution. We may have but a few years to adapt to the AI revolution,” Netanyahu said.

While the prime minister warned about potentially negative consequences, he nevertheless emphasized the potential benefits of AI for mankind. 

“Imagine the blessings of finally cracking the genetic code, extending human life by decades, and dramatically reducing the ravages of old age,” Netanyahu argued.