The Last Human Decision | AI, War, and the Burden No Machine Can Bear

Dr. John D. Marks
“For the man who is not aware of this, to throw the problem of his responsibility on the machine, whether it can learn or not, is to cast his responsibility to the winds, and to find it coming back seated on the whirlwind.”
- Norbert Wiener, The Human Use of Human Beings 1950[1]
Recent reporting on the Matzpen unit of the Israel Defense Forces – detailing its use of artificial intelligence, big data, and integrated operational systems during the war with Iran[2]  – deserves close professional attention. Matzpen appears to mark a threshold the practitioner community for approached more than a decade and now has crossed.
That crossing changes the relationship among information, speed, judgment, and command. According to The Jerusalem Post interview with the Matzpen commander, the unit helped transform air force effectiveness by connecting intelligence, operations, targeting, battle damage assessment, home-front warning, and force protection into faster and more integrated systems. What once moved through separate channels moved through a common operational nervous system. Decisions that once took days could be made in hours, and decisions that once took hours could be compressed into minutes.
That compression brings real operational promise, but it also urges caution. Missile-warning zones could narrow. Threats to troops could be detected and communicated in seconds. Commanders could receive a broader operational picture, and forces could adapt faster. Th...