Event Date: November 29, 2019 - 11:30 am to 1:00 pm
Location: FSS 4006, FSS Building, 120 University Private, Ottawa
Presented by CIPS and International Theory Network (ITN)
Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning are profoundly shaping today’s social processes, business transactions and governmental decisions. They have also captured the imagination of military forces. While much attention in recent years has been paid to how advances in AI enable autonomy in armed systems, the application and proliferation of AI in war is evident across a much broader spectrum of military practices. From decisions about which targets to strike and when, or who should be detained in armed conflict and for how long, to forecasts about when conflict is likely to erupt, or when a (nuclear) attack is under way, AI appears to afford new potential for war and security. This presentation analyzes what is at stake and how we can make sense of the current proliferation of AI decision-making technologies in war. Two broader arguments are examined. Firstly, locating them in a longer history of placing algorithms at the service of war, the presentation points out how AI and machine learning appear to respond to a specific (de-historicized) problematization of data and a shift in focus from “collecting it all” to “better decision-making” based on modern analytics. Secondly, while AI promises better predictions, better decisions, and an overall better performance than humans in highly complex tasks, AI-mediated decisions in war are better understood as embodied interventions. This, then, opens up a novel research focus on how war and conflict are (re)framed in such a way that AI can intervene.
Dr. Marijn Hoijtink is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science and Public Administration at VU Amsterdam.