New artificial intelligence technology is being used in the hunt for missing Americans in past wars, an investigative group announced Friday on National MIA/POW Recognition Day.
The POW Investigative Project, a group devoted to searching for missing troops once held captive after wars in Korea, Vietnam and the Cold War, said the use of AI has already produced results.
The powerful technology is now used to search and analyze document databases, foreign-language internet and foreign archives, photographs, film, satellite imagery and maps, in multiple languages, the Project announced in a statement Friday.
Requests for specific information on missing Americans have been made in 14 foreign languages.
“There are answers out there. AI dramatically improves our reach and efficiency, along with the odds of obtaining key evidence,” said Mark Sauter, founder and president of the Project, and an Army veteran who has been investigating the fate of missing Americans since 1989.
“The world’s newest technology may help us answer some of the oldest and most compelling questions in recent American history.”
President Trump this week designated Sept. 18 as National POW/MIA Recognition Day.
“The name, story, and fate of each POW/MIA are integral to America’s legacy of valor, and my administration will spare no effort or resource to fulfill our promise to those who answered the call to serve and paid an extraordinary price on battlefields and in captivity around the world,” the president said.
At a ceremony Friday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the Pentagon “will never stop looking” for missing service members.
“We leave no man behind,” he said.
Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, speaking at the same ceremony, mentioned the case of Marine Corps 1st Lt. Alexander “Sandy” Bonnyman Jr., who was killed at Tarawa, on the island of Kiribati in World War II and whose remains were identified in 2015 after 72 years.
“That obligation does not fade with time or lessen with distance. Our duty does not end until every missing American is accounted for and brought home to a grateful nation,” Gen. Caine said.
A total of more than 9,000 Americans remain unaccounted for from past wars and almost all died in combat with remains left on the battlefield or at sea.
The POW Investigative Project said it is focused on other cases of missing service members who were confirmed, reported or suspected of being alive in enemy hands but never returned or accounted for by communist governments.
AI is helping investigators to mine its own files, which include about 50,000 files of documents, video, declassified records and lawsuits filed against the CIA, the National Archives and other government agencies seeking records.
The federal government still classifies many POW/MIA documents dating back to 1951.
AI-powered investigators are also working with an estimated 1 million declassified documents released during the 1990s by the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs investigation, and millions in online collections.
They include foreign archives once closed by communist governments, Library of Congress POW/MIA documents, Texas Tech’s Vietnam archive, and file collections from POW/MIA family members and activists, POW and history books.
The probe also relies on information from the Pentagon’s Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency.
The agency, known as DPAA, came under fire from critics last year when The Washington Times disclosed that Vietnam was charging the Pentagon as much as $10,000 for a single-page document containing information on missing U.S. service members from the Vietnam War.
The findings were contained in a report by a POW advocacy group that said despite spending more than $86 million since 2016, just 25 cases of missing soldiers were resolved. The report said Vietnam appeared to be using recovery efforts to extort money from the United States, according to the National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia.
POW Investigative Project is now using AI visualization to increase the chances of identifying two missing Americans reported alive in Hanoi after the Vietnam War with the help of a Vietnamese national who worked on the issue for the Hanoi government.
Two black-and-white sketches of the missing men provided by the man were rendered into color, photo-like images that will allow surviving family members to recognize the Americans.
The AI technology also located records in the digital archives of a former communist nation that were used to clean up faded documents that then provided additional clues to missing Americans for investigators.
The nonprofit Project website provides details of the work of the investigators that include several former military and civilian experts on missing service members.
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