Can Artificial Intelligence Apply Gaming to Military Strategy?

By Albert McKeon

Games aren’t always just games. Games themselves provide an understanding of how contestants strategize, react to unexpected challenges and avoid costly consequences. At the heart of every good game, there’s a game within the game.

The study of gaming might be as old as gaming itself, but there are limits to how much information the naked eye can discern. That's why Northrop Grumman hopes to solve the mysteries of games by using artificial intelligence (AI) to glean insight that's out of reach of human observation.

This year, Northrop Grumman landed a contract to apply AI models in "Gamebreaker," a U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) program. Deploying AI in a real-time war game called "Command," Northrop Grumman developers hope to find any unfair advantages that give friendly forces an edge. Knowing the ‘broken’ states of the game can create an imbalance that allows a player to catch opponents off guard, a methodology that could then be applied to other games — and maybe, eventually, real-life military strategy.