Governing the Use of Autonomous Weapons and AI in Warfare with Lauren Kahn
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 1 March 2024
⏱️ 42 minutes
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Summary
Following Hamas’s attacks on Oct. 7, the Israeli military retaliated with a relentless and devastating air war. By mid-December, Israeli forces had struck more than 22,000 targets in Gaza, and the Israeli military said it had used artificial intelligence to select many of them. The targeting system, called “The Gospel” by the IDF, was not the first time a military used AI on the battlefield, but the high number of civilian casualties raised red flags for many.
Lawfare Managing Editor Tyler McBrien sat down with Lauren Kahn, a Senior Research Analyst at Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET) who focuses on the national security applications of artificial intelligence. They discussed how autonomous and AI-enabled weapons are being used and will be used in war, “the current ground rules for the age of AI in warfare,” and why Lauren favors confidence-building measures and other incremental steps, rather than an all-out ban. And despite running through a few nightmare scenarios, we learned why Lauren remains hopeful for the responsible and ethical use of AI for defense.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following podcast contains advertising. |
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| 0:08.0 | become a material supporter of Lawfair at Patreon.com slash Lawfair. That's Patreon.com |
| 0:16.4 | slash Lawfair. Also check out Lawfair's other podcast offerings, rational security, chatter, lawfare no bull, and the aftermath. |
| 0:30.0 | There are autonomous and AI-enabled systems being developed. There's a lot of |
| 0:37.8 | autonomous vehicles, a lot of drones that are increasingly capable that are |
| 0:42.2 | able to fly or a company and collaborate with human |
| 0:46.0 | pilots, things like that. And there are, you know, AI tools that are being used in sensing, |
| 0:51.1 | in ISR, in targeting and across a variety of spectrums but I think it's important to again |
| 0:56.8 | talk about these systems more in the context in which they're being used because they are so |
| 1:00.4 | widely varied and again these systems might not be military systems themselves |
| 1:05.6 | but they might be commercial and they may be translated into a military kind of context or |
| 1:09.9 | application. |
| 1:11.6 | I'm Tyler McBryan, managing editor of Lawfair, and this is the Lawfair |
| 1:15.4 | podcast March 1st, 2024. Following Hamas's attacks on October 7th, the |
| 1:21.7 | Israeli military retaliated with a relentless and devastating air war. |
| 1:25.8 | By mid-December, Israeli forces had struck more than 22,000 targets in Gaza, and the Israeli |
| 1:30.8 | military said it had used artificial intelligence to select many of them. |
| 1:35.0 | The targeting system, called the Gospel by the IDF, |
| 1:38.0 | was not the first time a military used AI on the battlefield, |
| 1:41.0 | but the high number of civilian casualties raised red flags for many. |
| 1:45.0 | I sat down with Lauren Kahn, a senior research analyst at Georgetown's Center for Security |
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