AI In Conflict: Cyberwar & Robot Soldiers
Artificial intelligence in conflict, from robot soldiers to cyber warfare, what will it look like? It's a question that was under discussion at this year's Munich Security Conference.
Leading the debate, Estonian President Kersti Kaljulaid (pictured). Her country was the victim of a massive hacking attack that was widely blamed on Russia.
The future of warfare will involve artificial intelligence systems acting as lethal weapons, and much like cyber a decade ago, NATO allies are ill-equipped to manage the potential threat, said current and former European leaders speaking at the Munich Security Conference.
Kersti Kaljulaid, estimated a 50 percent chance that by the middle of this century we will have an AI system capable of launching a lethal attack. And yet, just as the world was not prepared for a cyberattack when Russia first launched a cyberattack against Estonia in 2007 — bombarding websites of Estonian parliament, banks, ministries, and news outlets — there is no strategy or international law to deter such tactics of warfare.
“I have been really worried as an Estonian. Estonia is a digital state compared to many others, that our capacity to internationally agree and regulate for technological development has been extremely low," Kaljulaid told euronews. "We haven’t managed to do any progress, for example, even on cyber issues”.
Members of the public present in the audience said they are worried about robot soldiers, and self-piloted weaponised drones.
NATO's former Secretary General Anders Fogh Rassmussen said it's a legitimate concern:
“The use of robots and artificial intelligence within the military might make the whole world more unstable. For that reason, I think we should elaborate an international and legally binding treaty to prohibit the production and use of what has been called autonomous lethal weapons".
But such standards don’t come fast. It took until 2017 for NATO to declare that a cyber-attack would spur an Article 5 response, that being, collective defense among allies, after a massive computer hack paralysed portions of government and businesses in Ukraine before spreading around the globe.
In the meantime, much like cyber-security, AI presents an opportunity for Russia as well as China to use “grey zones,” said Rasmussen, not initiating open military conflict, but provoking allies enough to disrupt.
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