A prototype of Palantir’s AI-powered truck for smart targeting, delivered under a $300m contract to the Pentagon. Photo: Palantir
The Defence Force says it will be learning about "human-machine integration" - military robots - in a big exercise it is now on with the US Army.
Project Convergence Capstone, that is running this month in the California desert, is the Americans' number one experimentation exercise with military robots.
The US army is on the verge of awarding a big contract for a robot vehicle with guns that would go ahead of infantry to surveil and kill enemy soldiers.
It has just taken delivery of a prototype AI-driven targeting truck from tech firm Palantir.
The NZDF said it had 30 people at Project Convergence who were integrating its Command and Control, and Fire Control Systems with allies.
"This year includes a particular focus on human-machine integration," said Lieutenant Colonel Richie Appleton in a statement to RNZ.
"The NZ Army will observe and learn from our ally and partners."
Ministerial briefings state the country's position on military AI was that "we need to preserve access to technology relevant for our national security" but any new weapons should comply with international humanitarian law, an OIA response shows.
The US Army now has initiatives dedicated to human-machine integration (HMI) with the goal of "trading blood for steel", that is, in combat, robots take the first risks in place of troops.
Convergence let Defence practice at a scale it could not do in New Zealand, and be at the "cutting edge of military advances", said Appleton.
It was a "valuable opportunity to enhance our interoperability with our ally Australia and other partners".
The NZDF tested its first aerial drones, at sea, in 2023, and is currently testing four types from large to nano, that arrived in December, at the Waiouru army base, none are armed, it said.
The Convergence exercise has a lot of focus on integrating allies with US tech, such as teaching soldiers what the robots can do, and speeding up communications between them and humans, US Army reports said.
The NZDF is taking part in the first phase, focused on US 'Next Generation Command and Control' (NGC2) systems.
"What we're trying to do is take these emerging technologies where we can get this data better and faster to execute," said a US officer at the exercise.
US media have reported that allies would get to keep some of capabilities, "that they will be able to fight with on the Indo-Pacom warfighting network". RNZ has asked the NZDF for details.
From the first phase, the Pentagon will pick prototypes.
"We can employ it .... in sensors and help us understand, when you add in the power of data and aided target recognition, AI, we also have an opportunity to protect .... and then also to kill and have an impact lethally in a ravage size," said one US commander in a video about 'human machine integrated formations'.
Tech firm Palantir has just delivered prototypes of the first "thinking truck" with superfast targeting, under a $300m NGC2 contract.
The 'Titan' looks like a truck but "integrates sensors, networks and automation to increase operational tempo and reduce time from sensor to shooter" at long distances, Palantir said on its website.
The NZDF has used Palantir in a limited way for software, its annual review shows.
The US Army is aiming for a big rollout of armed robot vehicles by 2028.
The contract is expected to go to Textron, a US defence contractor that was on the list of attendees at a meeting of high-tech companies with Defence Minister Judith Collins last July.
Soldiers at Waiouru tested a Textron drone, the RQB-7 Shadow, last year, with a captain saying that watching the footage afterwards they "were taken aback at the detail in the imagery that was relayed... and how exposed they had been throughout the entire exercise. If you are out in the open, the enemy can see everything you do from 10,000 feet or higher."
A US commander leading robot efforts, Major General Curtis Buzzard, has talked about machines that go out in front of the main force collecting intelligence, doing surveillance, detecting chemical or biological weapons, breaching mines and taking out drones , and, when the enemy is detected, engaging and killing them.
The second phase of Project Convergence in April spreads much wider to joint exercises in Hawaii, Guam, the Philippines, Japan and Australia, but the NZDF is not part of that.
As well as upping the tempo and technology of joint exercises, the US has recently sought to integrate allies into its position on military AI.
It advocates for voluntary restraint, not mandatory international laws, but initially, no other country co-signed the US's 2023 'Political Declaration on Responsible Military Use of Artificial Intelligence and Autonomy'.
OIA papers show New Zealand backed it last year after America changed the text in unexplained ways.
"Given the US changes .... the value of supporting voluntary efforts on military use of AI - especially on autonomous weapon systems (AWS) - and to ensure we are part of important discussions alongside partners, we recommend that New Zealand endorse the Political Declaration," the Defence Ministry told the Defence and Foreign Affairs ministers in February 2024.
"This position recognises that we need to preserve access to technology relevant for our national security and interoperability with our security partners, while also advocating for the agreement of new rules and limits on AWS.
"It remains in our national security interests to ensure that any new weapons fielded comply with international humanitarian law and relevant ethical standards."
However, UN and other efforts to set new rules and limits have bogged down, while AI advances by key allies Australia, the UK and US have taken off as they trade more and more in military technology secrets.
India is also pushing into military AI and opposing any laws being put on it. The Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced a new Defence Cooperation Arrangement on his visit to India this week, that will lead to more joint training and exercises.
"This arrangement will open up new areas of collaboration between our defence forces and facilitate closer defence ties," Luxon said.
The arrangement stresses maritime collaboration.
China's Ambassador [. https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2018979788/china-s-nz-ambassador-questions-nz-india-relationship questioned the move], saying it was not sensible to promote a relationship with one nation if it damaged another.
The SIS spy agency has assessed "emerging technologies" like AI and quantum computing - which are part of the AUKUS Pillar Two tech-sharing pact between the UK, UK and Australia - "are being leveraged by states for strategic purposes, including for espionage, cyber-attacks and dis-information".
"Indeed, some of the sharpest competition playing out at the moment involves the race to secure intellectual property and global market share for emerging technologies," the SIS director-general Andrew Hamton said earlier this month in a speech on the importance of intelligence cooperation in the Pacific
