I am told that China is ahead of the U.S. in the weaponization of cognition. Some related links after the jump.
From Asia Times, July 19:
Cog war’s glaring and growing legal blind spot
AI-driven tactics and technologies to manipulate cognition and emotion pose increasingly insidious threats to human autonomy
Imagine waking up to the news that a deadly new strain of flu has emerged in your city. Health officials are downplaying it, but social media is flooded with contradictory claims from “medical experts” debating its origin and severity.
Hospitals are filled with patients showing flu-like symptoms, preventing other patients from accessing care and ultimately leading to deaths. It gradually emerges that a foreign adversary orchestrated this panic by planting false information – such as the strain having a very high death rate. Yet despite the casualties, no rules define this as an act of war.
This is cognitive warfare, or cog war for short, where the cognitive domain is used on battlefields or in hostile attacks below the threshold of war.
A classical example of cog war is a concept called “reflexive control” – an art refined by Russia over many decades. It involves shaping an adversary’s perceptions to your own benefit without them understanding that they have been manipulated.
In the context of the Ukraine conflict, this has included narratives about historical claims to Ukrainian land and portraying the west as morally corrupt.
Cog war serves to gain advantage over an adversary by targeting attitudes and behaviour at the individual, group or population level. It is designed to modify perceptions of reality, making “human cognition shaping” into a critical realm of warfare.
It is therefore a weapon in a geopolitical battle that plays out by interactions across human minds rather than across physical realms.
Because cog war can be waged without the physical damage regulated by the current laws of war, it exists in a legal vacuum. But that doesn’t mean it cannot ultimately incite violence based on false information or cause injury and death by secondary effects.
Battle of minds, bodily damage
The notion that war is essentially a mental contest, where cognitive manipulation is central, harks back to the strategist Sun Tzu (fifth century BC), author of The Art of War. Today, the online domain is the main arena for such operations....
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If interested see:
March 2022's "NATO Innovation Hub On Cognitive Warfare"
July 2022 - RAND Corporation on Fourth Industrial Revolution Technologies And Influence Campaigns/Information Warfare
Sometimes I think McLuhan could see the future:
Examining the Effects of Technologies on Strategic Deterrence in the 21st Century
Biotechnology
Decision support systems (DSSs) and technologies
Directed energy
Hypersonic systems
Information- and perception-manipulation technologies
Quantum information and sensing systems
Robotics and semi- and autonomous systems....
....Information- and Perception-Manipulation Technologies
Information- and perception-manipulation technologies cover a wide range of tools designed to distort the perception or beliefs of one individual or set of individuals for the purpose of achieving the perpetrator’s desired effect. These technologies are generally enabled by AI and aspects of cyber and rely on processing large amounts of data. In the context of international security, this set of technologies enables adversaries to conduct advanced influence operations. For purposes of this report, we examine four mechanisms through which information can be modified, with the goal of influencing or misleading targeted individuals or groups: (1) deepfakes, (2) microtargeting, (3) machine learning–driven programs, and (4) spoofing algorithms....
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And one we didn't post, from the Times of India, July 8, 2023. The writer is S D Pradhan. From his ToI mini-bio:
S D Pradhan has served as chairman of India's Joint Intelligence Committee. He has also been the country's deputy national security adviser. He was chairman of the Task ForceAnd his article:
Chinese neuro-strike programme: Pushing cognitive warfare to a new level
A worrisome dimension of the Chinese weapon programme relating to the weaponisation of public opinion in target countries has been confirmed by a twelve-page report of US researchers. The report entitled “Enumerating, Targeting and Collapsing the Chinese Communist Party’s NeuroStrike Program” indicates that China has developed a new type of neuro-strike weapons that are not only capable of disabling the cognitive capabilities of targets but can also control their brains. These weapons can cause neurological problems in a human, reduce his awareness, and tamper with the brains of soldiers in battle. NeuroStrike, as defined by McCreight- a well-known expert on cognitive warfare, refers to the engineered targeting of soldiers’ and civilians’ brains using distinct non-kinetic technology to impair cognition, reduce situational awareness, inflict long term neurological degradation, and fog normal cognitive functions.
Significantly, the report underlines that NeuroStrike and psychological warfare are a core component of its asymmetric warfare strategy against the US and its Allies in the Indo-Pacific, and are part of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) standard order of battle; not an unconventional set of capabilities only to be used under extreme circumstances. This represents the strategic thinking of China.
The report points out that China’s weaponisation of neuroscience extends well beyond the scope and understanding of classical microwave weapons; it now includes using massively distributed human-computer interfaces to control entire populations as well as a range of weapons designed to cause cognitive damage. Sources of resistance against China can be eliminated through these weapons by instilling intense fear or other forms of cognitive incoherence resulting in inaction.
The Academy of Military Medical Sciences has a division called the PLA Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, where such weapons are manufactured. This institute was placed on the United States export control blacklist in December 2021 with its leading role in CCP NeuroStrike research serving as a key justification.
China has been working for a long time to evolve a strategy to win wars without fighting adversaries, in accordance with Sun Tzu’s dictum. In late 1990s, China came up with its “No Contact Warfare” strategy, which was based on creating confusion in the adversary’s command and control system. In 2014, it came up with its ‘Three Warfares Strategy’ comprising psychological warfare, media warfare, and legal warfare to achieve its objectives. Broadly, the objectives of this strategy are to seize the “decisive opportunity” for controlling public opinion, organise psychological offence and defence, engage in legal struggle, and fight for popular will and public opinion.
The report points out how this strategy was used in the South China Sea (SCS). It contained seven steps. First, it changed the ground conditions and tried to shape the internal and external environment to support its claims. Second, utilise international arbitration to delay any settlement, while continuing to change the ground conditions. Third, dismiss the validity of international arbitration rulings in the event of an adverse ruling and shift focus on domestic laws. Fourth, claim the entire nine-dash-line area that was forcefully taken by foreign aggressors, based on manufactured historical evidence. Fifth, launch a high-voltage propaganda on its claims and project that China is exercising its legitimate rights to fully recover from the ‘Century of Humiliation.’ Sixth, utilise Chinese media, social media, and public diplomacy to achieve the objective. Seventh, use the Chinese Maritime Militia, Coast-Guard, and PLAN for intrusions in the EEZs of other countries and deny them oil exploration activities. China used these operations to divert international attention from its activities in the SCS and along the Indo-Tibetan border during the pandemic....
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Not that the Americans are slouches:
What The U.S. Army Thinks About When It Thinks About AI: PsyOps And Machine Learning
