Featured Article: The Role of Cognitive Dissonance in Dehumanization…

Featured article:

The Role of Cognitive Dissonance in Dehumanization: Denying Humanity through AI
by Bobbie Murray and Beata Moore

Artificial intelligence (AI) is an interdisciplinary science with multiple approaches to military application. It is quickly becoming central to modern warfare. There are eight areas where AI will prove its importance in the coming years: cybersecurity, warfare platforms, target recognition, logistics/transportation, battlefield healthcare, simulations/training, threat monitoring, and information processing. It is projected that by 2025, the market size of artificial intelligence is expected to reach USD 18.82 billion with a growth rate of 14.75 percent from 2017 to 2025.

From the perspective of psychology, the advancement of AI centers on two important considerations. First, it brings to question if it is indeed possible for machines to reproduce human cognition and if so, what could cognitive science learn from the process (such as neural networks). Second, with the aggressive integration of smart machines in more areas of our lives, we need to better understand the psychological and social consequences of AI’s increasing presence. The purpose of this work is not to undermine the integration efforts of AI into our military operational environment. Rather, the purpose is to highlight a need for understanding the psychological constructs that support our current understanding of human-machine relationships and to generate discussions related to new psychological constructs and theories that lay the foundation in support of how soldiers will learn to make decisions, manage cognitive dissonance, and successfully navigate the effects of change as artificial intelligence fully permeates the military environment. Scientific evaluation is a start to achieving a more defined and real understanding of how AI can allow humans to distance themselves from the reality of war…

Read the full article

The Role of Cognitive Dissonance in Dehumanization: Denying Humanity through AI PDF

Download the complete edition

IAJ 10-3 (2019) pdf
IAJ 10-3 (2019) ePub

Bobbie Murray is the human protections administrator and an associate professor for the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College. She holds degrees in German, international business, finance, organizational psychology, and a Ph.D. in industrial-organizational psychology. She is an Executive Scholar – Leadership with the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern.

Beata Moore is the director of the Ike Skelton Combined Arms Research Library, at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College. She received a Master of Library and Information Studies from the University of Alabama.