AI CUTS THE CLUTTER

Artificial Intelligence is helping to assist the collection and analysis of SIGINT on and off the battlefield in an increasingly crowded electromagnetic spectrum.

- Thomas Withington

The term Artificial Intelligence, AI for short, gets thrown around with merry abandon. Scarcely a day goes by sans blood-curdling warnings on how AI risks making humans superfluous or conversely how we should welcome the benefits it may bring. Polemics aside AI is changing the way that humans process data, and in the Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) domain it could be exactly the right technology at exactly the right moment. This topic was under lively discussion at this year’s Embedded Tech Trends conference held in late January in Atlanta, Georgia, and organised by the VITA open systems architecture advocacy organisation. To understand AI’s applicability to SIGINT we need to understand AI. The Oxford English Dictionary defines artificial intelligence as “the theory and development of computer systems able to perform tasks normally requiring human intelligence.” James Kilgallen, president and founder of COMINT Consulting, says that the central tenet of AI is to “lighten human workload and improve task accuracy.”

Spectrum Growth