SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea convened an international summit on Monday aiming to establish a blueprint for the responsible use of artificial intelligence in its military, but any agreement is not expected to be binding to enforce it.
More than 90 countries, including the United States and China, are sending government representatives to the two-day summit in Seoul, marking the second time the two-day event has been held.
At the first summit, held in Amsterdam last year, the United States, China and other countries supported a modest “call to action” without any legal obligations.
“The summit is expected to produce a blueprint for action, including establishing minimum guardrails for AI in the military domain and outlining principles for the responsible use of AI in this field,” a senior South Korean government official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not an official spokesman for the event.
“There are principles already laid out by NATO, the United States or several other countries, so we tried to find a point of convergence and reflect that in this document.”
It is unclear how many of the countries attending Tuesday’s summit will approve the document, which aims to attempt to set more detailed boundaries on the use of AI in the military but is likely to still lack legal obligations.
The summit is not the only international discussion on the use of AI in the military.
United Nations countries that are parties to the 1983 Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) are discussing the need for potential restrictions on lethal autonomous weapons systems, with a view to complying with international humanitarian law.
Last year, the U.S. government also released the Declaration on Responsible Use of AI in the Military, which covers not only military uses of AI but also a wide range of non-weapon military uses. As of August, 55 countries had ratified the declaration.
The Seoul Summit, co-hosted by the Netherlands, Singapore, Kenya and the UK, aims to ensure that multi-stakeholder discussions continue in an area where technology development is largely driven by the private sector but where governments are the main decision-makers.
Around 2,000 people from around the world, including representatives of international organizations, academia and the private sector, have registered to attend the summit to attend discussions on topics such as protecting civilians and the use of AI in nuclear arms control.
