Key Takeaways
- The increasing automation of war through the merger of Silicon Valley and the military-industrial complex is transforming the nature of warfare and civil-military relationships.
- Decision-support systems, rather than fully autonomous weapons, are the primary drivers of this transformation, enabling planning, targeting, and cyber operations.
- The convergence of automation across military decision-making structures and the deepening of corporate involvement in war are driven by similar fetishes and are changing the social arrangements of war.
- The involvement of tech companies in military operations is becoming increasingly pervasive, with companies like Palantir, Google, and Amazon playing key roles in surveillance, targeting, and decision-making.
- The development of AI-powered military systems is obscuring the organizational choices and human decisions embedded in their algorithms, raising concerns about accountability and the loss of human agency in war.
Introduction to the Issue
The world of artificial intelligence and warfare has been haunted by two specters: Skynet, the general artificial intelligence that achieves consciousness and turns against its creators, and the Terminator, the anthropomorphized killing machine that has dominated our collective imagination about automated warfare. However, as Anthony King’s book "AI, Automation, and War" suggests, these twin phantoms have served as convenient distractions while a more prosaic but equally revolutionary transformation has unfolded: the gradual automation of the broader organizational and operational structures of the military through the merger of Silicon Valley and the military-industrial complex. King’s analysis, based on interviews with 123 insiders across the developing US, UK, and Israeli tech-military complex, seeks to demystify the promise of full autonomy and the far-fetched ideas of artificial general intelligence in war-fighting.
The Automation of War
The automation of war is a software revolution that includes the integration and coordination of hardware, especially the tools that link surveillance to targeting. According to King, "The fears (and hopes) of full autonomy are misplaced. AI is not ‘replacing humans.’ Nor is the idea of human-machine teaming — which places weapons or systems on an equal footing with human agents — accurate." Instead, what we are seeing are decision-support systems: tools that enable planning, targeting, and cyber operations. These tools are and will be "used primarily to improve military understanding and intelligence." As King notes, "The human remains in the proverbial loop. But the nature of this loop is changing. And that change is twofold: automation is spreading, and so too is the ever-deeper participation of the civilian tech sector."
The Role of Tech Companies
The involvement of tech companies in military operations is becoming increasingly pervasive. Companies like Palantir, Google, and Amazon are playing key roles in surveillance, targeting, and decision-making. Palantir, for example, has been involved in the development of tools for the Israeli military, including the "Lavender" and "Gospel" systems, which are used to identify and target suspected militants. As one Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) source noted, "Some civilians are not really civilians. And some military industries are not really industries." This blurring of boundaries is exemplified by companies such as Elbit Systems, which King describes as having "integrated with operational units in the IDF… to design, develop, and improve software" in real-time battlefield conditions.
The Convergence of Automation and Corporate Involvement
The convergence of automation across military decision-making structures and the deepening of corporate involvement in war are driven by similar fetishes and are changing the social arrangements of war. As King argues, "The development of AI-powered military systems is obscuring the organizational choices and human decisions embedded in their algorithms." This raises concerns about accountability and the loss of human agency in war. The involvement of tech companies in military operations is also raising concerns about the role of profit in war-making. As one critic noted, "The fueling of war by the profit motive is, of course, as ancient as war itself, but a sociology of this tech-military complex may yet show how the breakdown of barriers through militant hypercapitalism connects the commodification of AI to the commodification of the social organization of war-fighting."
The Loss of Human Agency
The automation of war is leading to a reduction of human agency, as decisions are increasingly made by machines rather than humans. As King notes, "The human remains in the proverbial loop. But the nature of this loop is changing." The loss of human agency is particularly concerning in the context of war, where decisions are often made in complex and dynamic environments. The use of AI-powered systems in war-fighting is also raising concerns about the role of human judgment and decision-making. As one critic noted, "Decisions that lead to death and destruction are — and should always remain — human responsibilities."
The Future of War
The future of war is likely to be shaped by the increasing automation of military decision-making and the deepening involvement of tech companies in military operations. As King argues, "The development of AI-powered military systems is obscuring the organizational choices and human decisions embedded in their algorithms." This raises concerns about accountability and the loss of human agency in war. The involvement of tech companies in military operations is also raising concerns about the role of profit in war-making. As one critic noted, "The fueling of war by the profit motive is, of course, as ancient as war itself, but a sociology of this tech-military complex may yet show how the breakdown of barriers through militant hypercapitalism connects the commodification of AI to the commodification of the social organization of war-fighting." Ultimately, the future of war will depend on the ability of humans to maintain control over the decision-making process and to ensure that the use of AI-powered systems is transparent, accountable, and subject to human oversight.
https://jacobin.com/2026/01/fetishism-automation-ai-warfare-palantir