US military reveals 'Minority Report' technology to help predict enemy movements

The US military has harnessed Artificial Intelligence to enable it to predict enemy movements “days in advance” - technology likened to the Minority Report.

The Pentagon revealed it has developed a machine learning-based system that observes changes in raw, real-time data that hint at possible trouble, allowing them to react within seconds, where it would normally take military analysts hours or even days.

The Global Information Dominance Experiments (GIDE) - a combination of AI, cloud computing and sensors - would give the US the ability to take proactive steps such as deploying forces or ramping up defences rather than simply reacting to events or relying on outdated information.

For example, if satellite imagery shows signs that a rival nation's submarine is preparing to leave port, the GIDE system could flag that mobilisation knowing the vessel will likely leave soon.

“Now the machine can take a look and tell you exactly how many cars are in a parking lot or how many aeroplanes are parked on a ramp, or if a submarine is getting ready to leave or if a missile’s going to launch,” said General Glen VanHerck, commander of Northern Command and the North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD).

“Where that may have taken days before, or hours, today it can take seconds or less than minutes.”

Technology website The Drum compared the technology to the film Minority Report, which sees Tom Cruise play a policeman in a division where arrests are made based on predictions of future crimes

The aim is to achieve “decision-making superiority”, said Gen. VanHerck of NORAD, which protects the US homeland from enemy attack.

“What we’ve seen is the ability to get way further [than] being reactive into actually being proactive - and I’m talking not minutes and hours, I’m talking days,” he said at a Pentagon briefing.

The project is not using any new ways of gathering data, but rather combining information that already exists from satellites, radar, and undersea capabilities, then making that data available and sharing it in a cloud where machine learning and AI processes it instantly.

That information, Gen. VanHerck said, could be shared via cloud-based systems to allies and other partners in real-time, should the US military decide to.