Current and Future CONSIDERATIONS for the Use of Artificial Intelligence by the United States’ Department of Defense

Purpose: The “Narrow” AI technologies and its application to different sectors in the U.S. have brought tre-mendous advantages to the country and its citizens. This paper attempts to examine the opportunities and risks of AI’s potential application to the military health care sector. Yet, some human rights concerns remain. This paper further argues that the new Biden administration should pursue policies that reinforce a human-centric AI to be more supportive of human rights. Method: This paper employs the politics of responsibility theory to examine the present and future of AI re-sponsible governance in the Biden era. Based on resources from various AI related research by the U.S. gov-ernment, scholars, and experts, this paper further attempts to examine the opportunities and challenges in the ethical area that will likely be generated by applying AI to the American system of military health care. Results: This paper finds that the application of AI in military health care would likely provide immense op-portunities, especially in times of COVID-19. However, there are risks posed by the application of AI in various sectors as well as in military health care. Meanwhile, the new Biden administration’s future policymaking stage should emphasize ways in which AI may remain human-centric to be more supportive of human rights. Conclusion: In incorporating AI into virtually every economic sector and into daily life, the U.S. government, together with all sectors of society, should seek ways to maximize opportunities and minimize the risk of over-dependence or unregulated exposure to an intelligence far beyond the human level. The new Biden administra-tion should be at the forefront in promoting responsible AI policymaking to be more supportive of human rights.