Forbes:
Software can take the place of costly personnel. Replacing humans with software may raise ethical concerns for the warfighting profession, but it potentially has big budgetary benefits. Retired Major General Arnold Punaro, a legendary Washington insider, figures that the fully loaded cost of a single soldier in the All-Volunteer Force is $400,000 annually. Even at that steep price, the services are having trouble attracting new recruits.
Many military jobs can be performed more cost-effectively by using software in imaginative ways. That is particularly true with the advent of artificial intelligence programs using deep-learning processes. With the federal government spending a trillion dollars more than it takes in each year, the fiscal appeal of substituting software for people will become increasingly attractive—and not just in the military.
