Will AI Save Us?

Draft script:

As I have reported in this space, Artificial Intelligence is constrained by the humans inputting relevant information. AI can only be as knowledgeable and as intelligent as the humans contributing information. As a result, I am not especially excited about AI’s potential. I frequently refer to AI as Arrogant Idiot, thus revealing my attitude about humans contributing questionable information and expecting only wonderfully informed results in return.

From Defense One on 14 August 2025 comes an article titled New Golden Dome details emerge from industry day. The subhead: “Participants, and a Pentagon briefing deck, describes roles for AI, ideas for defensive satellites.” Here’s the lede, followed by an additional sentence to complete the opening paragraph: “AI is expected to play a central role in the Golden Dome air-defense system, from helping to integrate today’s sensors and interceptors to accelerating the detection and tracking of threats, according to slides shown by Defense Department offices … at an industry day in Huntsville, Alabama. The slides also provided new detail on the Pentagon’s ambitions for missile-killing satellites and other matters.”

The following paragraph provides all I need to know to reinforce my opinion of AI: “More than 3,000 people from the space and missile-defense sectors attended the daylong event, which was held amid—but was not formally affiliated with—the industry-group 2025 Space and Missile Defense Symposium. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth forbade Defense Department officials to discuss Golden Dome at the … [Space and Missile Defense Symposium], and reporters were barred from the industry day, whose discussions were unclassified.”

Wait, what? The daylong event was not affiliated with the Space and Missile Defense Symposium, although it was held amid this symposium? Also, why were reporters were barred from industry day, which produced unclassified documents?

When asked for details about the proceedings, the US Secretary of Defense sent an email containing this information: “The Golden Dome for America office is examining current and future solutions across the services and interagency to identify the most effective ways to modernize and quickly field the capabilities our nation needs to protect our homeland.”

Our homeland? Is that what we call the lands and waters we stole from Indigenous people? Our homeland sounds to me as if we are in late-1930s Germany. And why not? The entire Trump administration echoes Adolf Hitler and his administration.

Beneath a subhead titled “An AI-powered Golden Dome,” we are informed “AI is expected to help network a wider variety of radars and missile batteries, and may enable the tracking of far more missiles than is possible today.

An attendee of the Space and Missile Defense Symposium said “The reason you need AI help is because, instead of a handful of missiles, or a dozen or so from North Korea or Iran, now we’re talking about what could be dozens and dozens or hundreds from Russia or China. There’s a quantity challenge and then there’s a time challenge. You want to be able to hit these as quickly as you can, and AI can sort through that much, much faster than a human can.”

This reminds me of the Ronald Reagan administration and its promise of a missile defense system intended to protect the country of my birth from nuclear attacks, primary from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Called the Strategic Defense Initiative, it was derisively nicknamed the Star Wars program. The Department of Defense budget increased public expenditures by more than 27%. This increase in public expenses was consistent with Reagan’s trickle-down economics, a strategy that greatly increased public expenditures during economically challenging times for the lower and middle classes.

The director of Artificial Intelligence at Booz Allen Hamilton, a major recipient of funds from the Department of Defense … er, Department of War … in the country of my birth, claimed “AI could serve a variety of tasks related to space-based tracking and interception of missiles without necessarily removed humans from oversight of firing on incoming threats. He outlined a vision for AI-enabled fire control where humans play more of a supervisory role than an active one—but still act faster.”

If all this sounds too good to be true, then you are a good listener. As with every presidential administration in the country of my birth, the sales pitch always exceeds reality. The pitch is intended to increase funding for military actions, thereby benefiting government contractors. Never mind that the government contractors operate with little oversight. Never mind that accountability for the money they receive is poorly matched to what, if anything, they produce. An example comes from the article at Defense One under the subheading “Missile-killing satellites,” where an attendee is quoted: “If you want to test a space-based interceptor, you don’t have to necessarily launch it into orbit and then test it there. You could do suborbital testing of your kill vehicle with much cheaper launch costs and a much faster schedule.”

The final two paragraphs of the article at Defense One provide the bottom line under the subhead “Why so silent?”: “The curtain of secrecy around unclassified discussions renewed questions about the controversial program. Experts have expressed doubt about the administration’s claims about timeline, projected cost, practicality, and effect on deterrence.

“‘Golden Dome’ probably sounded good to the president, and now no one is going to talk him out of it—especially given that the administration is willing to throw mountains of money at such a program, just as Reagan did,” Tom Nichols wrote in The Atlantic. “Hegseth can order his people not to talk about it at public gatherings, but at some point, the administration should answer the two most important questions about an expensive system that could destabilize nuclear deterrence: What is Golden Dome supposed to do, and does it have any chance of working?”

Comparing the Trump administration to the Reagan administration is a great idea. These two Presidential administrations have infamously thrown money at problems that do not exist to greatly benefit friends of the administration. They have also reduced or removed money from scientifically important projects and educational institutions. Just as the Reagan administration irrevocably changed the country of my birth, so, too, is the Trump administration. These changes are, of course, in the wrong direction.

As usual in the country of my birth, the relevant question is asked and will remain unanswered by the federal government: “What is Golden Dome supposed to do, and does it have any chance of working?”