In an op-ed article published in Lawfare, CSET’s Lauren Kahn discusses the increasing integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in military operations globally and the need for effective governance to avoid potential mishaps and escalation.

Militaries seek to harness artificial intelligence for decision advantage. Yet AI systems introduce a new source of uncertainty in the likelihood of technical failures. Such failures could interact with strategic and human factors in ways that lead to miscalculation and escalation in a crisis or conflict. Harnessing AI effectively requires managing these risk trade-offs by reducing the likelihood, and containing the consequences of, AI failures.

Anthony Ferrara is an Air Force Fellow at Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology.

A CSET study found that a quarter of AI professionals view Pentagon work in a negative light, and 78% consider it a positive or neutral.

The Department of Defense can already begin applying its existing international science and technology agreements, global scientific networks, and role in multilateral institutions to stimulate digital defense cooperation. This issue brief frames this collection of options as a military AI cooperation toolbox, finding that the available tools offer valuable pathways to align policies, advance research, development, and testing, and to connect personnel–albeit in more structured ways in the Euro-Atlantic than in the Indo-Pacific.

New analytic tools are used in this data brief to explore the public artificial intelligence (AI) research portfolio of China’s security forces. The methods contextualize Chinese-language scholarly papers that claim a direct working affiliation with components of the Ministry of Public Security, People's Armed Police Force, and People’s Liberation Army. The authors review potential uses of computer vision, robotics, natural language processing and general AI research.

Plus, the White House announces funding for AI institutes, new chips are unveiled and NIST defines explainable AI

New Acting Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Michael Kratsios spoke with CSET Founding Director Jason Matheny and delivered formal remarks in his first public appearance in the role. The pre-recorded discussion and remarks addressed the challenges and opportunities inherent in defense innovation.

Plus RAND report on DOD, OECD report on semiconductor industry and the AI Index