AI and warfare

The Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG) and the Department of Media Studies at the University of Bonn as part of the MEHUCO research network are co-organising an international conference on artificial intelligence and future warfare at the HIIG. The event will be held on-site and in English.

 AI and warfare
Investigating the technological and political domains of current conflicts

International conference
Wednesday, 16 October – Friday, 18 October, 2024
HIIG | Französische Str. 9, 10117 Berlin

Conference Programme

Global conflicts and challenges to international security are among the most pressing issues of our time. Artificial intelligence is increasingly shaping the ways in which warfare is conducted, adding both complications and urgency to the issues caused by the current major geopolitical shifts. AI is one of the driving factors of technological change in warfare in general, with its major effects mainly related to new degrees of complexity in automation and new forms of human-machine interaction. On the one hand, this change introduces new capabilities in weapons systems, in particular in the fields of processing information, generating knowledge and the automation of decision-making. Most prominently, this results in a decreasing level of human intervention and control, thereby reshaping the relationship between human operators and autonomous weapons systems. On the other hand, AI-related developments do not only concern the kinetic dimension of warfare but also expand into what military theory calls the ‘information domain’. Shaping and controlling narratives has been an integral part of conflicts and warfare for a long time, with disinformation and propaganda campaigns utilising the most recent (media) technologies for this purpose. The functionality of AI applications will increasingly be integrated in these efforts, as can already be observed with the dissemination of manipulated content on social media. AI-based technologies are also deployed in cyber warfare, which is not limited to the singular hacking of a system, but rather targeted to directly affect whole digital military infrastructures or civilian entities in politics, the economy or research.

The objective of the conference is to explore these domains of modern warfare in order to develop a more accurate picture of the various effects of AI in military contexts. Another goal is to broaden the perspective of the military deployment of AI beyond questions of weapon systems and their control, by particularly looking at adversarial uses of AI in hybrid forms of warfare in the information domain. The conference particularly aims to develop and establish a dialogue between the research on these two domains that are often explored separately.

(The Call for Papers for active participation is already closed.)

Participation

If you wish to participate in the conference as a guest, we kindly ask you to register using the below form until 15 September 2024. You will receive an instant notification of registration. Please note that attendance is only possible if you also receive the confirmation of your registration in a separate mailing, as the number of participants is limited.

Please contact ai-warfare@hiig.de for further questions.

Bookings