Carl von Clausewitz, the fog-of-war, and the AI revolution: the real world is not a game of Go.

摘要

As artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly used in many areas, including fully automated vehicle control and military applications, there are concerns about how effectively such systems deal with extreme conditions. Carl von Clausewitz, the 19th century military theorist, coined the term "the fog of war," a pithy phrase that parallels Hel-muth von Moltke's more modern quote: "No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy" [1]. Military engagements are chaotic, and communication is difficult, meaning leaders must deal with delayed, conflicting, or erroneous intelligence reports when making real-time decisions on how to proceed. In this brief monograph, the author compares the conditions of battle with how AI systems might behave when, for example, "driving a fast car on a twisting, pot-holed road at night." Will we have a graceful degradation of performance or will there be a threshold beyond which catastrophic failure occurs?