About 60 countries including the United States endorsed a “blueprint for action” in September 2024 to govern responsible use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the military, but the People’s Republic of China (PRC) was among those that refused to support the legally non-binding document.
The Responsible AI in the Military Domain summit in Seoul, the second of its kind, followed one held in The Hague in 2023. At that time, around 60 nations including the PRC endorsed a modest “call to action” without legal commitment.
Government representatives said this latest plan was more action-oriented, in keeping with advanced discussions and developments in the military such as AI-enabled drones deployed by Ukraine, which also endorsed the document.
“We are making further concrete steps,” said Netherlands Defence Minister Ruben Brekelmans. “Last year … was more about creating shared understanding, now we are getting more towards action.”
This includes laying out what kind of risk assessments should be made, important conditions such as human control and how confidence-building measures can be taken in order to manage risks, he said.
Among the details added in the document were the need to prevent AI from being used to proliferate weapons of mass destruction by actors including terrorist groups and the importance of maintaining human control and involvement in nuclear weapons employment.
There are many other initiatives on the issue, such as the U.S. government’s declaration on responsible use of AI in the military launched in 2023.
The Seoul summit — co-hosted by Kenya, the Netherlands, Singapore and the United Kingdom — aimed to ensure multistakeholder discussions are not dominated by a single nation or entity.
The PRC was among about 30 nations that sent a government representative to the summit but did not back the document, illustrating stark differences of views among the stakeholders. “We also need to be realistic that we will never have the whole world on board,” Brekelmans said. “How do we deal with the fact that not everyone is complying? … That is a complicated dilemma that we should also put on the table.”
Giacomo Persi Paoli, head of Programme Security and Technology at the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, said countries should engage with others in between summits to mitigate any risks. “The blueprint is an incremental step forward,” he said. “By going too fast, too soon, there is a very high risk that many countries do not want to engage.” Reuters