Managing The Deployment Of Emerging Technologies For Military Use

Jordan Small

Executive Director

“One stream in our future of security and defence programme is focused on managing the deployment of advanced technologies, such as AI, in the security and defence space to improve accountability and oversight, capture the benefits and reduce harm.”

Common across all our policy programmes is a focus on the governance and considered rollout of advanced technologies in areas of importance to New Zealand. Our focus as an organisation is on bringing new perspectives to the table to improve the quality of debate in developing policy domains.

One stream in our future of security and defence programme is focused on managing the deployment of advanced technologies, such as AI, in the security and defence space to improve accountability and oversight, capture the benefits and reduce harm.

Meaningful governance of autonomous weapons

Specifically, we’re interested in questions such as: what meaningful international and domestic governance of autonomous weapons might look like? Whether these technologies might mitigate collateral damage and improve national security? And should humans be required to maintain control to make important defence decisions?

New Zealand has a proud track record of involvement and leadership in international fora working toward global disarmament and countering the spread of weapons of mass destruction. We’re a signatory to international treaties and conventions that work to limit the production, proliferation and use of inhumane conventional weapons and weapons of mass destruction. New Zealand has a long-standing reputation for taking a principled line on the elimination of nuclear weapons.

Principled approach

Importantly for our purposes the authors provide a set of principles that they argue should guide the development of appropriate governance structures to enhance the benefits and manage the risks of military uses of AI. They ask: what might meaningful international and domestic governance of autonomous weapons look like?

“attempting to ban autonomous lethal weapons at this point in the game would be impossible to enforce. AI is already integrated in to defence strategies and would be difficult to reverse.”

They do start from a position that attempting to ban autonomous lethal weapons at this point in the game would be impossible to enforce. AI is already integrated in to defence strategies and would be difficult to reverse. There may also be beneficial civilian uses. Given this they argue the best or only approach is to try and capture the benefits of AI and protect against the potential harms.

Their five areas of focus are:

• Transparency in technology performance to allow for proper oversight and accountability: with more robust performance measures around testing, defense agencies could offer a meaningful degree of transparency prior to deploying a technology.
• Maintaining human-in-the-loop systems that permit human decision making: requiring systems that allow for human intervention would preserve human agency with new technology in the case of failures, unexpected actions, or other needs.
• Hiring and training appropriate personnel to ensure worker competencies: humans engaging with emerging military technology must maintain technical literacy by updating their knowledge relevant to their post.
• Regulations on technology transfer to prevent malicious use of advanced technology: how and with whom we trade weapons becomes increasingly important given the sophistication of emerging technologies. We must consider who should control data, algorithms, and hardware during technology transfer.
• Strong prioritization of cybersecurity to protect digital intelligence, infrastructure, and services: the more we digitize our military systems, the more we are exposed to cyber vulnerabilities. It is important that the defense agencies continuously maintain the highest established standards for cybersecurity.