Artificial Intelligence
Nova 2, Legion-X, and the AI Political Declaration
The race to develop autonomous weapons systems for military deployment has entered a new phase, with the use of artificial intelligence (AI) technology for the navigation of small drones in active combat. In the latest round of Gaza conflicts commencing on October 7,...
The Political Declaration on Responsible Military Use of Artificial Intelligence and Autonomy
On 1 November, Vice President Harris announced that 32 States had endorsed the Political Declaration on the Responsible Military Use of Artificial Intelligence and Autonomy (Declaration) that the United States developed. The number has grown in the days since the Vice...
IHL and Information Operations during Armed Conflict
Material in this post also appeared on the International Committee of the Red Cross site Humanitarian Law and Policy Blog “In war, truth is the first casualty” is perhaps one of the best known aphorisms about armed conflict. Information operations have long been...
2023 DoD Manual Revision – To Shoot, or Not to Shoot . . . Automation and the Presumption of Civilian Status
(Editor’s note: This post is part of a series analyzing the 2023 revisions to the U.S. Department of Defense’s Law of War Manual.) One of the most important and inherently complex areas in the conduct of hostilities relates to plans and decisions to attack....
Life, Love & Lethality: History and Delegating Death on the Battlefield
In military circles, the 1939 Einstein-Szilard letter to President Roosevelt is a well-known document that changed the course of history. It was instrumental in the establishment of the Manhattan Project in 1945, resulting in the world’s first atomic bomb. What is...
U.S. Support to the ICC (in AI-Generated Iambic Pentameter)
I never imagined I would submit for publication a poem from Chat-GPT about U.S. policy toward the International Criminal Court (ICC). But that is what I am doing today. The background is as follows. Each day, we hear more about uses of generative artificial...
Responsible AI Symposium – Prioritizing Humanitarian AI as part of “Responsible AI”
Editor’s note: The following post highlights a subject addressed at an expert workshop conducted by the Geneva Centre for Security Policy focusing on Responsible AI. For a general introduction to this symposium, see Tobias Vestner’s and Professor Sean...
The IDF Introduces Artificial Intelligence to the Battlefield – A New Frontier?
New and emerging technologies impact significantly the ways in which military operations are conducted. Advancements have been achieved in the development and deployment of autonomous weapon systems, military use of cyberspace, and more. One emerging field in which...
Year Ahead – Emerging Technologies and the Collection of Battlefield Evidence
In a recent series of posts on responsible artificial intelligence (AI), various authors (including Chris Jenks) have discussed the role of “responsibility” in the context of using of AI enabled systems, including weapon systems, on the battlefield. In each of these...
Year Ahead – The Hurdles to International Regulation of AI Tools
In 2023, non-governmental organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Stop Killer Robots will continue their calls for a new international legal framework to regulate autonomous weapons systems. Some States and scholars are optimistic about the possibility. These...