"Others Don't Do This": The French Navy is Shifting Acoustics to AI Algorithms

In March 2024, when the creation of France's Military Artificial Intelligence Agency (AMIAD) was announced, Sébastien Lecornu, then Minister of Defence, mentioned "testing innovative solutions in underwater acoustic analysis."

This is one of the key areas of naval warfare: acoustic systems analyze the sounds emitted by ships' propulsion systems to create a database that can accurately identify enemy targets and even determine their location and speed.

In the French Navy, this task is carried out by acoustic warfare specialists (ANAGA, also known as "golden ears"), working in the Acoustic Interpretation and Recognition Centre (CIRA) or directly on board submarines.

However, collecting ship acoustic signatures is becoming increasingly difficult as vessel traffic continues to increase and sensors become more powerful. Consequently, the volume of data to be analyzed increases, hence the idea of ​​using AI.

For this purpose, the command fleet is collaborating with Safran AI (formerly Preligens) to develop the solution mentioned by Lecornu. Research is likely progressing quite quickly:

We're doing something no one else is doing. We turned to a startup for help and completely converted the CIRA system to AI. We increased the department's productivity by approximately 40-50 times compared to what it was before.

- said Admiral Nicolas Vaujour, Chief of Naval Staff.

According to him, human personnel are much better at analyzing sounds than a Python algorithm, for example, by detecting when a submarine opens a hatch or starts a diesel engine. However, the AI ​​is assigned simpler tasks, which reduces the workload for human personnel. Specifically, it can identify a ship's propulsion system and determine the number of propeller blades.

Comments

[torbas41]

It'll be interesting to see how AI can help when the French crew starts suffocating in the hardware. It's certainly an interesting idea, though.

[Bear]

When there's nothing real to show, narcissistic bragging begins. We're this, that, the coolest, no one before us, but here we are. And AI is a must, just like nanotechnology a little earlier. In a word: idiots.

[AK-1945]

I don't quite get the point of the article—it's full of contradictions. AI is a panacea for everything, with productivity increasing by a whopping 40-50 times, yet it's being tasked with the simplest tasks. It doesn't quite add up for me. It's certainly possible that the French submariners were incredibly slow when performing simple tasks, and AI reduced their stupidity by a whopping 40-50 times, but that's just surreal.

[solar]

From what is written, they are trying to relieve staff from routine tasks, which are the majority, and allow them to focus on individual cases that are more difficult to identify.

[AK-1945]

They are trying to relieve staff from routine tasks, which are the majority, and allow them to focus on individual cases that are more difficult to identify.

Do you yourself believe this nonsense?

[solar]

I admit it's possible. Expert systems have been around for a long time; this is simply their next level. Where answering questions requires analyzing large amounts of information, computers have long been better at it than humans.
The Chinese are also using AI to search for submarines.
https://www.rbc.ru/politics/14/09/2025/68c6c1f59a79474ba70fd060
P.S. Gridasov has been on the forum for so many years now, he has improved noticeably, before he rarely spun nonsense (except for the rare cases when a real person wrote on his behalf), but now he has started writing more or less coherently.

[gridasov]

Given that AI, as a system for receiving and transmitting data, and in general for working with big data and aspects of data flow dynamics, fundamental energy consumption processes negate progress on many issues. And as the saying goes, if it needs to be explained, it's pointless.

[Andrey_i_K]

This is where everyone is heading...and it only makes things worse for us.

[lynnot]

I wonder how likely it is that a French AI will be to identify a "farting herring"?