Stop the emerging AI cold war

Abstract

In April, the European Commission published the first international legal framework for making AI secure and ethical; in January, the European Parliament issued guidelines stating that military AI should not replace human decisions and oversight. During the cold war, the drive to stay ahead in the technological race led to the accumulation of 70,000 nuclear weapons and today's global arsenal of 13,100 warheads. Unlike nuclear arms, AI is already ubiquitous in civilian spheres, so the dual-use risks of, say, flying drones or computer night vision are much higher. Since 2014, I have been an observer and adviser at United Nations meetings, and I testified in 2017 as part of the International Panel on the Regulation ofAutonomous Weapons.