Nations Are Discussing Battlefield AI. Here's What We Know

Last week in The Hague, representatives from more than 60 nations, including the US, China, and South Korea, gathered to explore the moral and legal ramifications of employing artificial intelligence in the military.

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The first event of its sort to explore AI's role in security was the Responsible AI in the Military Domain (REAIM) summit, which was hosted in a city known for housing courts to prosecute people who have violated the laws of war. It was an inaugural attempt to bring together government representatives, policymakers, members of the armed forces, and representatives from businesses to talk about potential regulations for the use of AI in defense technologies.

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Around 60 nations signed a "call to action" after two days of extensive deliberations, which was the first step toward establishing standards for a subject still in its infancy.

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Speakers emphasized the urgency of developing regulations. In the meantime, technology is advancing quickly, according to Marietje Schaake, international policy director at Stanford University's Cyber Policy Center and a former member of the European Parliament. "There are big gaps to be addressed from regulating to up-skilling, to responsibility," she said. 

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The conference was planned long before the release of OpenAI's ChatGPT chatbot, for example, but Ed Kronenburg, a Dutch diplomat and the summit's special representative, claims that recent public development in AI has underlined the urgency of regulation. "Developments are going so rapidly, especially the instances in the corporate world," he remarked. "Let alone talk about legislation, society is having a hard time keeping up."

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Despite regulations, participants agreed that it was essential for military companies to have their own code of ethics and let that influence their development plans.

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Consider Saab AB, a Swedish defense corporation that has long utilized AI. Chief Technology Officer Petter Bedoire stated in an interview that "We have started in sectors that are not sensitive from an ethical point of view." "Our current method of operation is an interpretation based on humanitarian law and a few development principles. We make sure that our engineers are aware of which regions are risk-free and which require extreme caution.

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The summit's discussions on whether or not humans should still have a place in any autonomous weapon systems were at their core. It comes down to who is ultimately responsible for using the technologies, according to Kronenburg, and how you want to govern it.

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The call to action issued by the foreign and defense ministers of the nations present at the summit emphasized the responsibility humans have when using artificial intelligence in the military.

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According to Agnes Callamard, secretary general of Amnesty International, "there is an understanding that genuine human control would strengthen your automated system, not diminish it. I think this is also true in the military." "Different people may have different standards for what constitutes meaningful human control. We may talk about it, but I believe everyone agrees that this is the best place to start.

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The human rights organization cautioned that the meeting and the ongoing discussion about the use of AI in warfare placed an undue emphasis on the circumstances surrounding the crisis in Ukraine. Everyone here believes they are the good guy because of Ukraine, Callamard said. "It's failing to realize that countries can change in an era of political unpredictability."