US army general admits to using ChatGPT to make major decisions

We all know by now that it's not uncommon for the average person to be turning to AI for answers for career, relationship, and life advice.

But did you know that even top military generals are now consulting chatbots for answers?

Yep, that's right, it's been reported this week that the top US Army commander in South Korea is experimenting with generative artificial intelligence chatbots to aid his decision-making.

It's important to note that he's not using it in the field or in combat situations, but in command and daily leadership work, as reported by Business Insider.

Major General William 'Hank' Taylor, who is commanding general of the 8th Army, is said to have made the comments during a press roundtable at the annual Association of the United States Army conference in Washington DC on Monday (20 October).

He reportedly said: "Chat and I have become really close lately. I'm asking to build, trying to build models to help all of us."

A top US military general has revealed he uses AI to make some leadership decisions (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

The general added: "As a commander, I want to make better decisions. I want to make sure that I make decisions at the right time to give me the advantage."

He said that having been in the Army for a long time, before computers, AI has been 'very, very interesting for him'.

Taylor continued: “As we talk about protection, drone use, counter-drones and counter-UAS, medical modernization, aviation modernization, we have something going on in almost every domain of modernisation in Korea, right?

"AI is one thing that, as a commander, it’s been very, very interesting for me. Obviously, I’ve been in the Army for a long time, right? And so I was in the Army before computers."

The general also told Defence Scoop: “Just being able to write our weekly reports and things, in the intelligence world, to actually then help us predict things - I think that is the biggest thing that really I’m excited about - it’s that modernisation piece."

Last year, Former Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall warned we're going into a world where decisions will be made at 'machine speed' rather than 'human speed'.

He issued a report in which he predicted that AI-assisted decision making will be at the centre of many military functions and capabilities by 2050.

It comes after the US Department of Defence teamed up with OpenAI earlier this year (Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Kendall wrote: "Victory or defeat in the air or in space at the human scale is likely to be determined by which combatant has fielded the most advanced AI technology in the areas most crucial to achieving victory."

According to the New York Post, the comments come at a time when the American military has been pushing to integrate artificial intelligence into its operations, as they try to keep up with rival nations including China and Russia who are racing to do the same.

Back in June, the US Department of Defence teamed up with OpenAI, issuing a $200m contract to put generative AI to work for the US military.

A the time, the Pentagon explained, as per Reuters: "Under this award, the performer will develop prototype frontier AI capabilities to address critical national security challenges in both warfighting and enterprise domains.”

In simple terms, OpenAI teamed up with the military to develop AI tools which will provide support.