Artificial intelligence (AI) drives fundamental change within our world, including the military domain. While the integration of AI technologies creates unprecedented opportunities to boost human capabilities, especially in terms of decision-making, it also raises significant legal, security-related and ethical concerns in areas like transparency, reliability, predictability, accountability and bias. These concerns are amplified in the high-risk military context. That’s why the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Defence together, hold the REAIM conference on the 15th and 16th of February 2023 in the World Forum in The Hague.
More emphasis on AI within politics
The broader the support for making agreements about military applications of AI, the greater the effectiveness. The conference aims to move the subject of responsible AI in the military domain higher on the political agenda and to encourage various groups of stakeholders to contribute to concrete next steps. The approach is to inspire visitors and to build knowledge together by sharing experiences and solutions. The focus of the conference is on AI used in military operations. This refers to the use of force or the analysis and decision-making that is included here. Attention is paid to all aspects related to this during the entire life cycle of an AI system.
NL AIC’s contribution during REAIM
Both the NL AIC and NIDV contribute to the conference, as the Netherlands strives to be a progressive and responsible high-tech country. This will be illustrated through two elements (progressive and responsible) within the demonstrations and pitches. At the same time, it offers a great opportunity for the Dutch business community and knowledge institutes to present their work internationally. In this way, policymakers are able to provide a better picture of AI and data science and how they are handled responsibly in the Netherlands.
NL AIC’s contribution has a multi-faceted approach. As such, a break-out session will be organized on February 15 that opens with a shortened interactive version of the game “Age of AI”, in which players (in this case the audience) have to build a fictional AI system in order to complete a mission. During the game they are confronted with the practical and ethical consequences of their design choices. This gives a first impression and makes people think about the challenges that are involved. The game is followed by a panel discussion with experts from four different perspectives based on questions based on the game just played: scientific (Emiel Aerts), industry (Sophie Kuijt, IBM), legal and military (end user).
Finally, practical examples are presented. Our members fill a significant portion during the Innovation Hub. During both days there is plenty to see and hear throughout the whole building: demonstrations of existing systems, current projects and new ideas and perspectives.
The following Dutch companies will provide a demonstration during REAIM:
- Accenture – Analyzing mission data through AI
- Brush AI – Bridging the gap: from ethics to technology
- Councyl – Transparent decision support without historical data
- Esri – Object detection on the map
- LegalAIR BV – Responsible AI – Comliance by design on five axes: legal, ethics, robustness, privacy and security
- MILREM – Presentation to be determined
- NCIA – Presentation to be determined
- NLR (1) – Automatic situation recognition in drone images
- NLR (2) – Triggers from space
- Saab Technologies – Collision detection and anomaly detection in maritime environments
- TNO – Predictive Warfare
- Xaiva – Interactive Visualisation for Explainable Machine Learning
The NL AIC and NIDV have actively approached companies to draw up this list. Due to the dynamics in the set-up, the rest of the organization has been handed over to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs since last week. In addition to a demonstration, various parties also provide a break-out session with a presentation or workshop. Like IBM. The ELSA lab Defense also provides its own 2-hour break-out session.
