WHAT COULD GO WRONG? By year’s end, the Pentagon wants computers to be leading the hunt for Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria.

The Pentagon has raced to buy and deploy drones that carry high-resolution cameras over the past decade and a half of war in Afghanistan and Iraq. But on the back end, stateside analysts are overwhelmed. Pentagon leaders hope technology can ease the burden on the workforce while producing better results on the battlefield.

“How do we actually begin to automate that in a way that gives time back to analysts who otherwise spend 80 percent of their time doing…mundane, administrative tasks associated with staring at full-motion video,” Shanahan said.

If an analyst sees something now, he or she typically types the data manually into a spreadsheet. Pentagon leaders do not believe that’s a good use of these analysts’ time.

So last month, Work — perhaps the Pentagon’s lead champion for marrying people and technology — established a special cell called the Algorithmic Warfare Cross Functional Team. The group will look to integrate big data and machine learning across the military.

Joking headline aside, this project looks like the perfect way to streamline endless data into something overworked analysts can handle, and that the military can then make good use of.

Or maybe that’s just what Skynet wants you to believe…