{"id":487301,"date":"2026-05-16T06:29:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T06:29:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/487301\/"},"modified":"2026-05-16T06:29:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T06:29:13","slug":"new-army-vehicles-under-french-deal-can-automatically-target-perceived-threats-using-ai-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/487301\/","title":{"rendered":"New Army vehicles under French deal can automatically target perceived threats using AI \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Weapons systems, which can target perceived threats automatically through artificial intelligence<\/a> (AI), could be part of the Defence Forces\u2019<\/a> armoured fleet, under an agreement with France.<\/p>\n

It comes as the Defence Forces, which is increasingly turning to AI to carry out missions, is examining the purchase of semi-autonomous weapons systems. <\/p>\n

The Government has entered into an arrangement with France<\/a> to purchase hundreds of modern combat vehicles that are capable of using AI to automatically identify targets and aim at perceived threats.<\/p>\n

According to experts, these systems can also be configured to fire automatically on a target without human input, but to date, no military has used it in this way.<\/p>\n

The proposed acquisition of AI systems by the Defence Forces in combat scenarios is likely to attract significant controversy. <\/p>\n

On the international stage, Ireland is a vocal opponent of lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS) and has been pushing for a UN treaty banning their use to be signed by the end of 2026.<\/p>\n

The automated systems are part of France\u2019s Scorpion programme, a sweeping initiative to modernise the French Army\u2019s armoured fleet and integrate advanced sensors and communication systems.<\/p>\n

In February, Minister for Defence Helen McEntee announced Ireland would enter into a government-to-government deal with Paris to acquire Scorpion vehicles. The deal will be worth up to \u20ac600 million, sources said.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Ireland signs agreement with France for joint military training and intel sharingOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Central to the Scorpion programme is a \u201cslew-to-cue\u201d system. Using AI, the system identifies objects it judges to be a threat. It then alerts the vehicle\u2019s operators and automatically aims the weapon at the perceived enemy. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt moves the turret so that it basically aims precisely at the threat. No humans will have to be involved in any of this,\u201d defence analyst Michael Shurkin told The Irish Times.<\/p>\n

\"MinisterMinister for Defence Helen McEntee announced a new deal with France in which Ireland would buy hundreds of new armoured vehicles and artillery pieces. Photograph: Sam Boal\/Collins Photos <\/p>\n

Shurkin, who previously served as a political analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), carried out a study on the Scorpion programme for the Rand Corporation, a think-tank established by the US military to study future weapon systems.<\/p>\n

The Scorpion system could, in theory, open fire on perceived threats without any human input, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody does that. They can, but they don\u2019t,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cAll militaries that I know believe in having a man in the loop; there needs to be some human looking at the information and deciding \u2018yes or no\u2019 on pulling the trigger.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sinn F\u00e9in defence spokesman Donnchadh \u00d3 Laoghaire described the prospect of AI-led weaponry as \u201cfrightening\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe all recognise the need to acquire additional armoured capability and to modernise our capacity but that does not mean that we need to adopt these technologies that have such profound implications and which the Irish Government is looking to ban,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Labour defence spokesman Duncan Smith called for \u201ccast-iron guarantees\u201d that the Scorpion systems would remain \u201cunder human control\u201d.<\/p>\n

A Department of Defence spokesman said it would be inappropriate to discuss the specifics of the Scorpion deal while negotiations are ongoing. He said Ireland remained committed to pursuing international regulation of autonomous lethal weapons.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Weapons systems, which can target perceived threats automatically through artificial intelligence (AI), could be part of the Defence…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":487302,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[261],"tags":[291,289,290,9217,34889,18,2220,14370,19,17,82,2863],"class_list":{"0":"post-487301","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-defence-forces","12":"tag-department-of-defence","13":"tag-eire","14":"tag-france","15":"tag-helen-mcentee","16":"tag-ie","17":"tag-ireland","18":"tag-technology","19":"tag-united-nations-un"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116582847139000638","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=487301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487301\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/487302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=487301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=487301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=487301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}