Joint Force Quarterly
Abstract
This article analyzes how the People’s Liberation Army views the military potential and limitations of artificial intelligence as part of China’s broader drive toward “intelligentization.” Drawing on approximately 370 military theory articles published in PLA Daily in 2023, the author identifies four principal areas in which the PLA expects AI to transform warfare: situational awareness, military decisionmaking, unmanned weapons, and cognitive domain operations. PLA writings also discuss applications in training, logistics, and weapons development. At the same time, the PLA acknowledges significant risks, including unreliable or biased data, system malfunction, loss of human control, unintended escalation, legal and ethical concerns, and adversarial manipulation. Despite these limitations, PLA theorists continue to emphasize AI’s potential to generate new forms of warfare and to enable forces to design the terms of future conflict rather than merely respond to them. The article concludes that the PLA is aware it may be overestimating AI, but its ambitions still warrant close attention. The United States and its allies should therefore scrutinize Chinese military thinking on AI while developing military concepts that incorporate AI’s advantages without overlooking its limitations.
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