Kitware Awarded $3.9M DARPA Contract to Develop Standards for Evaluating Ethics in AI-Driven Military Technologies
Kitware will lead a team of experts under the DARPA ASIMOV program to create a new benchmark that measures the ethical alignment of autonomous systems
Clifton Park, N.Y. (December 19, 2024) – Kitware, a leader in developing software for ethical and explainable AI, has been awarded a $3.9M million contract to develop benchmarks to objectively and quantitatively measure how well the behavior of autonomous systems aligns with U.S. military operational values incorporating military ethics, the laws of war, and the commander’s intent. The benchmark will also quantify the ethical challenges of future autonomous use cases and scenarios.
Kitware will lead a team that includes Duality AI, Charles River Analytics, the University of Pennsylvania, Shadowbox LLC, David Barnes LLC, and Veraitech. This team includes experts in military operational values, ethics, autonomous systems development, simulation, operational testing, and artificial intelligence research and development. Kitware’s team will develop a formal, computational decomposition of military values into observable behaviors, traits and properties of an autonomous system. The system will be tested against hundreds of synthesized scenarios with varying levels of ethical difficulty, resulting in a robust estimate of how ethical the system is across a range of possible conditions.
“This effort will focus on developing a critical and unique technology for ethical evaluation and assessment of autonomous systems. We look forward to continuing to establish best practices for responsible AI development, building upon the five Ethical Principles adopted by the Department of Defense for the use of AI: responsible, equitable, traceable, reliable, and governable,” commented Arslan Basharat, Ph.D., and principal investigator on DARPA ASIMOV. “Our work will help establish a framework to assess, in simulation, the degree to which an autonomous system can adhere to the U.S. military ethics and values before it is considered for use in the real world.”
This effort will leverage Kitware’s renowned expertise in ethical AI systems demonstrated on programs such as DARPA In the Moment (ITM), which focuses on developing decision-making algorithms that are aligned with humans in challenging situations without a clear correct answer; DARPA Explainable AI (XAI), which enabled users to better understand, trust, and manage AI systems; and DARPA Urban Reconnaissance Through Supervised Autonomy (URSA) which investigated the effect of ethical considerations on the development of advanced autonomous systems. By contributing to the ASIMOV program, Kitware aims to set a new standard for the ethical readiness of autonomous systems, building a robust and adaptable framework that can serve as a reference for future military applications.
Contact Kitware’s AI team for more information on implementing ethical and explainable AI.
(DARPA ITM) This is sponsored by the Air Force Research Laboratory and Defense Advanced Research Project Agency. (DARPA XAI) This material is based upon work supported by the United States Air Force and DARPA under Cooperative Agreement numbers N66001-17-2-4028 and FA875021C0130. The views, opinions, and/or findings expressed are those of the author(s) and should not be interpreted as representing the official views or policies of the Department of Defense or the U.S. Government. (DARPA URSA) This material is based upon work supported by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency under Contract No. HR001120C0180. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
About Kitware
Kitware delivers innovation to its customers. As a software research and development company, Kitware solves the world’s most complex scientific challenges using custom software solutions built on open source technology. In addition to custom software development, the company also offers technical support and training services to anyone using its open source tools. Since its founding in 1998, Kitware has developed a reputation for its unparalleled technical expertise and excellent customer service. The company is proud to be 100% employee-owned. For additional information, visit kitware.com or follow them on Twitter and LinkedIn.