The Pentagon's Maven project helps Ukraine's defense forces fight against Russia. AI technology processes Russian troop movements and predicts where the enemy might strike. But the war in Ukraine showed the Americans how limited technology is so far. Journalists of The New York Times wrote about this in their article, AIN.UA translated and publishes the most interesting from there.
Six years ago, Google signed a $9 million contract to create an AI tool that would help the military identify potential targets on the battlefield using drone footage.. Due to the opposition of the company's employees, a scandal broke out, and the techno giant left the project. But Maven did not disappear, it was simply transferred to another contractor. Almost 50 companies from Virginia to California worked on the project. But one company has become the most successful in this – Palantir (it will also help clear mines in Ukraine and modernize Ukrainian schools). They were able to pull all the data together because they focus on organizing and visualizing huge data sets. The US government deployed early versions of Maven, based on Palantir technology, during the COVID-19 pandemic and the Kabul evacuation operation to coordinate resources and track preparedness.. The project processed a stream of data that could not be quickly processed by humans. The full-scale war in Ukraine became a testing ground for the project and other technologies. NYT tells the story of how, after the large-scale invasion of Russia, a high-ranking American military officer met with one of Ukraine's top generals on the Polish border and showed Maven's capabilities. The publication claims that the Americans knew more about the movements of Ukrainian troops than the general himself.. And since US President Biden forbade indirect participation in the war, the United States could only provide “a changing picture of the battlefield.” But the version provided to Ukraine did not have the “most sensitive” American intelligence. So the Ukrainians created something like the “shadow project Maven”, using commercial satellite companies Maxar and Planet Labs, as well as data from Twitter, Telegram, Instagram. And later, photos of the Dons and geolocation data from the phones of Russian soldiers.
How the technology showed itself
As the NYT writes with reference to field commanders, this information helped Ukraine target Russian artillery. But the initial hope that a picture of the battlefield would reach soldiers in the trenches connected to phones or tablets has not been realized.
So far, the results are mixed. On the one hand, generals and commanders received a new way to compile the movement and communications of the Russian troops into one large and convenient picture. On the other hand, the American experience in Ukraine emphasized how difficult it is to “deliver 21st century data to the trenches of the 19th”. Russia's attack on Ukraine showed the Americans that the possibilities of technology are limitless.. And that Ukraine's ability to repel an invasion probably depends to a greater extent on the resumption of supplies of the main types of weapons and ammunition, especially artillery shells. It is noticeable that Russia is adapting to the technologies that the west provides faster than expected. If in the first years of the war they actually did not use EW systems, now they jam not only drones, but also HIMARS missiles.