Members of the global military community gathered on the side-lines of an AI summit in Paris to discuss how recent developments are impacting ongoing – and future – conflicts.
On the side-lines of the Artificial intelligence summit in Paris, the military community gathered this Monday to discuss how AI is impacting conflicts around the world
President Macron has been urging France and the EU to step up their AI efforts, especially within the defence field. However, one of the main obstacles to increased EU cooperation is data.
To be effective, algorithms require many sets of different kinds of data, some of which many arms producers are reluctant to share
“There’s probably one difficult, but it’s not just in France or Europe,” said Christophe Meyer, AI expert and CTO of cortAIx Labs, “That’s data access, because we’re dealing with classified data, very, very, very tricky data.”
“When it comes to sovereign data, we obviously can’t shar it as we like,” he added.
But according to a NATO commander, today’s conflicts such as Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine demonstrate the alliance members don’t have a choice but to keep up with the pace.
“The ability to adapt to an enemy’s course of action is really important. You see that in Ukraine. So, you know, it’s a matter of it’s a question of life. If you do not adapt at speed on that scale, then you die,” said NATO Supreme Allied Commander for Transformation Pierre Vandier.
“The imperatives for the allied side are interoperability so that the 32 members can work together with confidence in the data they use, and with rules that are understood by all. We also need to make sure that the data flows produced by the various allies can be used together so that they can participate in the same situation.”
The AI Summit is already proving to be a catalyst of EU military cooperation.
On Monday, Helsing, a German-based company specializing in defence, teamed up with Mistral AI, a French generative AI start-up, to develop next-generation AI systems for EU defence.
