On 24 February, SIPRI and the Embassy of Sweden in Seoul jointly held a launch event for the report ‘The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Strategic Stability and Nuclear Risk—Volume II: East Asian Perspectives’.
The report is the second in a series of three that explores regional perspectives and trends related to the impact recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) could have on nuclear weapons and doctrines, as well as on strategic stability and nuclear risk. The second volume assembled the perspectives of 13 experts from East Asia, Russia and the United States to assess how machine learning and autonomy may become the focus of an arms race among nuclear-armed states.
The launch event assembled four of the report’s contributing authors: Dr Michiru Nishida; Dr Il-soon Hwang; Dr Vadim Kozyulin; and Dr Lora Saalman, SIPRI Associate Senior Fellow. Following opening remarks by Ms Victoria Rhodin Sandström, the discussion covered a range of the applications of machine learning and autonomy in the nuclear realm. Panelists then explored AI-related technological advances and trends in Russia, China, North Korea and the United States and their implications for East Asian security. After detailing the stabilizing and destabilizing trends that accompany the greater integration of autonomy and machine learning into conventional and nuclear forces, panelists made recommendations for future arms control measures, with a view to the upcoming 2020 Review Conference for the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.