Military AI Coalition Of 13 Countries Meets On Ethics

WASHINGTON: In an extraordinary meeting that highlights how crucial artificial intelligence is becoming to the US and its allies, some 100 officials from 13 democratic countries met online Tuesday and Wednesday to discuss how their militaries could ethically use AI, the first summit of its kind. Hosted by the Pentagon's Joint AI Center, the virtual conference kicked off what JAIC's calling the AI Partnership for Defense, an international forum it hopes will evolve from broad principles and policy to technical cooperation on data and algorithms. "This is historic," said Mark Beall, who's been working on international cooperation since he became the JAIC's chief strategy and policy 18 months ago. "This group of my countries, to my knowledge, has never been brought together under one banner before." Defense Secretary Mark Esper officially adopted a set of AI ethics principles in February, although implementation is still nascent.