TL;DRAt the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, senior military officials warned that AI is compressing battlefield decision-making faster than humans can process, eclipsing nuclear weapons as the dominant strategic concern. Ukraine and the US-Iran conflict were cited as live examples of AI already shaping combat operations.
The dangers of artificial intelligence eclipsed nuclear weapons as the central concern at a strategic stability panel during the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, with senior military officials warning that AI-driven systems are collapsing the time available for human decision-making in conflict. The annual defense summit, held from 29 to 31 May, drew defence ministers and military chiefs from across the Indo-Pacific and beyond.
Lieutenant General Nauman Zakria, Commander of 1 Corps and the Army Rocket Force Command of the Pakistan Army, framed the threat in terms of the OODA loop, the military decision-making cycle of observe, orient, decide, and act. AI compresses that loop to the point where it creates a fog in which “a human can’t evaluate the situation fast enough,” he said. “People will act irrationally, and the actions will be extreme.”
Already on the battlefield
