00:00Well, I'd like to introduce you to our guest here, Raphael David Lasseri, is a doctor in theoretical nuclear physics,
00:06founder and chief operating officer of Magic Lemp. He's here to talk about AI and its possible use in war scenarios.
00:13And of course, what we're looking at and what we're going to talk about is the situation in Ukraine.
00:18I'm wondering how you see AI developing in terms of warfare and where your company fits in.
00:24Good evening. So for sure, AI is currently irrigating a lot of systems.
00:30And for sure, during this period where geopolitical situation is really unstable, it's fueling warfare.
00:37At Magic Lemp, we are actively developing several systems, some of them to boost and develop defense solutions for French armies.
00:46And for sure, today, it's really important to grasp a bit what's going on with these kind of solutions.
00:51Raphael David Lasseri will speak to you more in a moment.
00:54Let's take a look at this report then about the issues that we will be talking about.
00:58With the rise in hybrid threats and intimidating maneuvers from hostile powers, France has joined the race to develop intelligent weapons.
01:05The state plans to invest €2 billion in artificial intelligence for defense by 2030,
01:11from radars that use AI to exponentially increase their detection and reconnaissance capacities,
01:16to weapons with AI to help take decisions, to algorithms allowing for multiple drones and robots to operate together.
01:23The range of applications is wide.
01:25The technology is developing at breakneck speed.
01:27The defense industry sees AI as a veritable game changer on the battlefield.
01:32And the private sector is benefiting from a boomy market.
01:35Alina Volusheen and Gulliver-Kraig with this.
01:37Not far from Paris, this French manufacturer is demonstrating how a swarm of drones operates using artificial intelligence.
01:54The company plans to market this technology next year.
01:57The operator will be able to give very high-level orders to the drone.
02:02For example, he'll say to the AI, OK, I need you to patrol this zone here.
02:07The system will understand the notion of patrolling and will deploy and patrol the area.
02:11We're moving on from the era when you had to control every movement with a joystick.
02:15The drone lives its life and will apply that to the whole swarm.
02:19At its center near Bordeaux, Thales is working on more than 100 projects that use AI.
02:24Like this hardware that improves the performance of territorial surveillance radars.
02:31We're going to connect this laptop to the radar's calculator.
02:34And thanks to it, we can identify our targets of interest 100 times faster than before.
02:41The Rafale jets will have AI.
02:43It's also beginning to be incorporated into ground-based radars.
02:46It's become standard practice.
02:49In the hills above Antibes in the south of France,
02:52this startup generates digital images on which to train AIs.
02:58Here I'm generating images to train a drone to detect vehicles in a desert environment.
03:05The current situation means that there's a lot of investment in defense,
03:09on the European level in particular.
03:12There's an effort to achieve greater sovereignty in the AI field too.
03:16Initially, these entrepreneurs were betting more on developing automatic vacuum cleaners.
03:24They say the shift from civilian to military applications gives their work a patriotic dimension.
03:30Elena Volashin, Gulliver-Craig with that report.
03:32Our guest is Raphael David-Lasseri, doctor in theoretical nuclear physics,
03:37founder and chief operating officer of Magic Lemp,
03:39a company that's seeking to use AI to illuminate rather than trigger blind people with science.
03:43This man will give us, I hope, explanations about how AI can be applied to things like the battlefield.
03:50I must admit, to be really frank with you,
03:53I find it fascinating but also very frightening at the same time.
03:57Sure.
03:57I mean, as usual with AI, there is a side which is really frightening,
04:02especially when we are dealing with kinetic systems,
04:04so meaning that we are going to use some automated decision-making system
04:10that can intervene in the battlefield.
04:13So just one important point.
04:15In France, for instance, we have a very strong doctrine
04:17which says that, for instance, if you have an automated system,
04:21it cannot take the decision that can kill or that can impede the life of someone.
04:27So what needs to be really clear is that we can accelerate,
04:32we can use AI to better understand the battlefield,
04:35but for now, our stance in France is not to use it as a mean of killing.
04:41But for sure, there is also a bright side for it.
04:43In a world where there is a lot of signals,
04:46when battlefields become more and more complex,
04:49more and more aggregation of thousands of signals,
04:52we need to have some systems that can reduce the noise
04:55and increase the signal, and AI is the key.
04:58Is AI already affecting things as they happen on the battlefield in Ukraine, for instance?
05:03Sure, a lot.
05:04We have seen that it can be at the level of the targeting systems for the drones,
05:08for instance, which increase by more than 80% the efficiency of drones.
05:13There is also for the counter-drones,
05:16so when trying to control the aerial space,
05:19there is currently a system which is called Sky Turrets,
05:23which is an automated turret which detects and shut down drones and loitering munitions.
05:29So there is already a lot of applications,
05:32not only on the kinetic side, but also in the cognitive side,
05:36so working also in all the areas of misinformation
05:39and how to do some psychological warfare.
05:42So it's already there.
05:43So in some way, this can be used not just purely and simply for the taking of life,
05:48but also for the prevention of that happening in terms of reconnaissance,
05:52in terms of better planning, in terms of actually stopping missiles coming through.
05:55Sure.
05:56As usual, there is these two sides, the defence and the offence.
05:59We don't need to be really innocent.
06:01I mean, it's important to also have an offensive doctrine and to know how to act.
06:06But currently, yeah, it can be used to protect population,
06:10to better plan, to better recon.
06:11But we need not to be that innocent.
06:14I mean, war is war and there will be a toll.
06:17And now the question is, how can we compress this toll to reduce it
06:20and to maximise the effects of the kinetic weapons using AI to increase efficiency and reduce loss?
06:29As you said, we mustn't be disingenuous about this.
06:31There is, in terms of war, war effort, in terms of arms manufacture, there is an economy.
06:36It makes money.
06:37People make money off the back of this.
06:38Will there be a similar budget or economy bursting out of this AI boom?
06:45Sure.
06:45There is already an economic boom in the defence sector.
06:51A lot of other sectors are suffering from the economical uncertainty.
06:55And for sure, there is a lot of people which are looking very closely at this economy.
06:59But just to recall something, the birth of the military and economic ecosystem in the US
07:06was started in 1945 with the development of the nuclear weapon.
07:10Currently, we are trying to have a look at the same dynamic with a very, very strong need on the military side
07:16and with the impossibility to develop all the application only for military.
07:21So, it comes to a point where we need dual applications.
07:25So, we need civilian and military applications.
07:27And for sure, there is an economic boom related to these sectors.
07:31And coming back to Ukraine, what's happening on the battlefield,
07:33this is really changing how actual armies are getting together and hitting each other, isn't it?
07:39What would have been before and what has we've seen,
07:41sort of the so-called meat grinder in Ukraine,
07:43in places like Bakhmut, where military men have been firing at each other,
07:47this can all be done perhaps in a very different way going forward.
07:50It will probably modify the way that we are looking at it.
07:54Just to recall, more than a century ago,
07:57Foch, the General Foch, Marshall Foch, had a phrase which says that
08:02to win a war, you need the economy of means and the concentrations of efforts.
08:07And the idea is really to have systems that can optimize the forces in presence
08:12and lower, as we said, the loss.
08:15However, infantry is still the king of the battlefield.
08:18And from a personal point of view, I'm not seeing a fully robotized battlefield tomorrow.
08:26But already in Ukraine, we are already seeing a lot of doctrine which are changing
08:31due to the use of AI algorithm and systems.
08:35So I'm not sure that it will profoundly change the tone of military,
08:41but for sure it will change tactics and it will change the dynamics of war.
08:45Raphael, David, thank you very much for joining us.
08:47Raphael Dariot-Lassari is Doctor in Theoretical Nuclear Physics,
08:50Founder and Chief Operating Officer of Magic Lemp,
08:53a company that basically tells you all about AI and all the things that you are doubting.
08:57And thank you for clarifying something for us about the frightening, chilling,
09:02but also fascinating use of AI in the fields of warfare.
09:05Raphael David-Lassari, thank you for joining us.
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