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Governing Military AI in competitive times: Options for the EU

SEMINAR · 24.01.2024 13:00 - 15:00

The rapid development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has profound transformative potential for society. Given its uncertain evolution and widespread accessibility to both benevolent and malevolent actors, it is necessary to focus on AI governance in terms of developing global regulation and oversight – this is the case especially with regard to military applications. The recent challenges in multilateral cooperation, particularly between major powers, make (global) regulation of military AI extremely difficult. The EU’s advance on the regulatory front with the Artificial Intelligence Act (AIA) excludes military use of AI, and another hurdle is posed by the spillover effects of military AI on the strategic competition between the United States and China.

This seminar discusses how the EU should position itself in and among various governance and regulatory efforts aimed at military applications of AI. It builds on an extensive AI expert survey conducted by Erasmus University Rotterdam in autumn 2023. In particular, the seminar addresses EU’s coalition-building willingness, whom to liaise with, and how the EU can situate itself in a global landscape where a multitude of initiatives are being set forth. The event is arranged as part of the Reignite Multilateralism via Technology (REMIT) project. REMIT is funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement No 101094228.

More information: events@fiia.fi

Speakers

Michal Onderco

Professor, Erasmus University Rotterdam

Michal Onderco is Full Professor of International Relations in the Department of Public Administration and Sociology at Erasmus University Rotterdam. His main interest lies in the institutional structures for governing international security, including their origins and functioning. During the academic year 2018–2019, Professor Onderco was CISAC Junior Faculty Fellow at Stanford University. Before coming to Erasmus University, he obtained his PhD in political science from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in 2014. In the academic year 2014–2015, he was Max Weber Fellow at the European University Institute. Between 2012–2013, he was a Fulbright Visiting Researcher at Columbia University's Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies. He is the author of ”Networked Nonproliferation” (SUP, 2022).

Katja Creutz

Programme Director, FIIA

Katja Creutz is Programme Director of the Global Security and Governance research programme at FIIA. She is also an Affiliated Research Fellow with the Erik Castrén Institute at the University of Helsinki. Her main field of expertise is international law and especially issues of responsibility, human rights and global governance. Dr Creutz holds a Doctor of Laws degree (2015) and a Master of Laws programme degree from the University of Helsinki (2004) and a Master of Political Science from Åbo Akademi University (2000). She has published extensively on responsibility in international law, non-state actors, human rights and Nordic issues. She leads the REMIT work package “Geopolitics in technology governance”.

Comments

Charly Salonius-Pasternak

Leading Researcher, FIIA

Charly Salonius-Pasternak is a Leading Researcher at FIIA and leads the work of the Center on US Politics and Power (CUSPP). His work at FIIA focuses on international security issues, especially Nordic and transatlantic security (including NATO), as well as U.S. foreign and defence policy. Recently he has focused on Finnish-Swedish defence cooperation and the evolution of US and NATO alliance reassurance approaches in light of the changed regional security situation. In 2017, he was a visiting research fellow at the Changing Character of War programme at Pembroke College (Oxford University), where he studied the hybridization of warfare and the impact of the Information Age on the character of war.

Chair

Ville Sinkkonen

Senior Research Fellow, FIIA

Ville Sinkkonen is a Senior Research Fellow at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, Center on US Politics and Power. His research focuses on US foreign policy, great-power politics, normative power, and the politics of trust in international relations. Sinkkonen is the author of A Comparative Appraisal of Normative Power: The European Union, the United States and the January 25th, 2011 Revolution in Egypt (Brill, 2015), and his work has been published in the Cambridge Review of International Affairs, the Journal of Transatlantic Studies, and European Foreign Affairs Review, among others. He holds an LL.D. (International Law) from the University of Turku, where he defended his doctoral dissertation Failing hegemony? Four essays on the global engagement of the United States of America in the 21st Century in December 2020. Sinkkonen is the chairperson of the Finnish International Studies Association (FISA) and co-editor of the Nordic Review of International Studies (NRIS).