On 5–6 November, SIPRI was a thematic partner to the international conference on ‘2020. Capturing Technology. Rethinking Arms Control’. The conference was held in a virtual format and organized by the German Federal Foreign Office.
During the conference, SIPRI hosted a highly interactive breakout session on ‘The Military Use of Artificial Intelligence: Artificial and Real Challenges for Arms Control’. The SIPRI breakout session—which was attended by over 200 participants—focused on how the humanitarian and strategic risks posed by the military use of artificial intelligence (AI) could be addressed using familiar arms control tools, as well as novel approaches that promote the responsible development, diffusion and use of AI in the military sphere.
The breakout session was moderated by Netta Goussac, SIPRI Associate Senior Researcher, and featured interventions from the chair of the United Nations Group of Governmental Experts on Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems and experts from, among others, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Airbus, the International Committee for Robots Arms Control, the Future of Life Institute, and the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs. The issues and ideas discussed at the SIPRI breakout session were outlined in SIPRI’s contribution to the Conference Reader, as well as in a short film that aired during the opening session of the conference.
Ahead of the conference, SIPRI published two reports on the governance of AI: Responsible Artificial Intelligence Research and Innovation for International Peace and Security and, Responsible Military Use of Artificial Intelligence: Can the European Union Lead the Way in Developing Best Practice?.
The other conference partners were: the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the Foundation for Strategic Research, the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg, the International Institute for Strategic Studies and the UN Institute for Disarmament Research.
More information about the conference is available here.