Prof. Toni Erskine1, Dr Ben Zala2
1Australian National University, Canberra, Australia, 2Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
Biography:
Toni Erskine is Professor of International Politics in the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs at the Australian National University (ANU) and Associate Fellow of the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence at Cambridge University. She is Chief Investigator of the ‘Anticipating the Future of War: AI, Automated Systems, and Resort-to-Force Decision Making’ Research Project, funded by the Australian Government through a grant by Defence. She has also served as Academic Lead for the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UN ESCAP)/Association of Pacific Rim Universities (APRU) ‘AI for the Social Good’ Research Project (2021-2024) and in this capacity worked closely with government departments in Thailand and Bangladesh. She recently served as Director of the Coral Bell School at the ANU (2018-23) and Editor of International Theory: A Journal of International Politics, Law & Philosophy (2019-23). Her research interests include the impact of new technologies (particularly AI) on organised violence; the moral agency and responsibility of formal organisations in world politics; the ethics of war; the responsibility to protect vulnerable populations from mass atrocity crimes; cosmopolitan theories and their critics; and the role of joint purposive action and informal coalitions in response to global crises and existential threat. She is the recipient of the International Studies Association’s 2024-25 Distinguished Scholar Award in International Ethics.
Abstract:
What if intelligent machines determined whether states engaged in war? In one sense, this is merely the stuff of science fiction, or long-term speculation about how future technologies will evolve, surpass our capabilities, and take control. In another more nuanced sense, however, this is a highly plausible reality, compatible with the technologies that we have now, likely to be realized in some form in the near future (given observable developments in other spheres), and a prospect that we are willingly, incrementally bringing about. The participants in this panel will analyse the ethical, legal, political, and strategic implications of the eminently conceivable – yet largely neglected – prospect of AI intervening in decision making on the resort to force. They will identify risks that accompany this intervention and recommend means of mitigating them. In doing so, they will seek to redress our collective tendency to focus exclusively on the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on the conduct of war (with our gaze fixed on the battlefield and jus in bello constraints) and demonstrate the need to interrogate the influence of AI on the resort to war (with our attention also directed to decision making in the war room and jus ad bellum considerations).