BRSL Events

The U.S. War on Iran has drawn widespread attention to the influence of AI and data science tools on military choices previously left to human judgement. At issue is whether the use of AI in military decision-making increases the risk to civilian life and if these tools accelerate the pace of war beyond the possibility of human oversight. Possible safety solutions, like improving the technical and regulatory guardrails over these systems, are meeting resistance in the United States and around the world. In the face of these challenges, how should technology, policy, and legal communities respond? 

BRSL Senior Research Scholar Dr. Sarah Shoker will be joined in this conversation by Dr. Jessica Dorsey; Assistant Professor of International Law and director of the Realities of Algorithmic Warfare Program at Utrecht University School of Law, Ritwik Gupta; Assistant Professor of Computer Science and AI; University of Maryland, College Park, and Michael Horowitz, Director of Perry World House and Richard Perry Professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Crispin Barker will report on his research into the history of salami tactics (a strategy associated with the Cold War but with much older antecedents) and how an advanced artificial intelligence could use salami tactics to subvert control. His research explores the fundamental flaws in human decision-making that have made even highly experienced politicians and military officers vulnerable to salami tactics, and shows how these can be exploited by an autonomous weapon system to negate the means of control without being shut down or destroyed. His report concludes by discussing how humans can use salami tactics against AI to maintain control.

Dr. Crispin Barker, historian and philosopher of science, medicine, and related domains. Research Associate, Center for Science, Technology, Medicine & Society (CSTMS), UC Berkeley.

This webinar will walk through the purpose, capabilities, and use of the Hypersonic Glide Vehicle Simulator, a recently launched web application that enables quick and easy modeling of the flight performance of hypersonic missiles. In addition to covering detailed use cases for this tool, it will walk through BRSL’s broader work on the integration of technical analysis into global security analysis.

Dr. Cameron Tracy, BRSL Senior Research Scholar in conversation with Dr. David Wright, Research Affiliate of the Laboratory for Nuclear Security and Policy at MIT, and Justin Ly, Graduate Student in the Master of Science in Artificial Intelligence (MSAI) program at Santa Clara University.

Dr. Ariel Petrovics will present her recent edited volume on how efforts to reduce nuclear weapons dangers may sometimes wind up exacerbating them. These efforts are considered fundamental to reducing the likelihood of nuclear catastrophe. Yet, no tool is guaranteed to succeed and some may even have unanticipated, counterproductive consequences for international security. In a field fixated on finding solutions, this book instead warns readers not to lose sight of the drivers and often calamitous effects of failed nuclear policies.

Dr. Ariel Petrovics, Visiting Scholar at the University of Denver’s Korbel School of International Affairs, Research Associate at the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy.

Bailey Ulbricht will present initial findings from ongoing scholarship examining the possible demise of international law’s prohibition on the use of force and a potential – if not uncontroversial – pathway forward leveraging a long-standing international legal principle known as necessity. The aim of this talk is to foster honest reflections about international law and to attempt to chart a pathway forward.

Bailey Ulbricht, Executive Director, Stanford Humanitarian Program, Stanford University.