The Future of Death in an Algorithmic Age

    Activity: Talk or presentation types › Invited talk

    Description

    The underlying principle of prediction is foundational to the operative logic of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Prediction, or “anticipatory defence”, is likewise central to the military rationale of pre-emption. This talk will explore the extent to which the fatal interlocking of martial paradigms of pre-emption and automated models of prognostication needs to be scrutinised, not least when we consider the pervasive use of AI in unmanned aerial systems (UAS) and lethal autonomous weapons (LAWs). Through defining the deterministic intentionality and systematic biases of algorithms, we can recognize and establish the degree to which individuals and communities are exposed to the fact of imminent death and injury based on a projected calculus of “threat”. If the present-day prosecution of global conflict is predicated upon and calibrated by these algorithmic rationalizations of “threat”, we need to pose an urgent question: What is the future of death in an algorithmic age and who—or, more precisely, what—will get to decide its biopolitical and legal definitions?
    Period3 May 2024
    Held atCentre for Drones and Culture (Centre for the Future of Intelligence, Cambridge University), United Kingdom
    Degree of RecognitionInternational

    Keywords

    • AI
    • algorithms
    • automated target recognition

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