NATO wants to strike a deal with China over rules outlining the responsible use of artificial intelligence and other disruptive technologies in the military domain, the alliance’s chief Jens Stoltenberg said Tuesday.
(Bloomberg) — NATO wants to strike a deal with China over rules outlining the responsible use of artificial intelligence and other disruptive technologies in the military domain, the alliance’s chief Jens Stoltenberg said Tuesday.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is pushing to develop shared universal standards for new technologies, following up on an AI strategy agreed among the alliance’s members that outlines principles for responsible use.
“The next step would be to engage with China, both on these values and principles but also to perhaps agree on some rules of the road for responsible use,” Stoltenberg told a NATO conference on arms control and disarmament by video link. He added his staff was in regular contact with their counterparts in capitals including Beijing.
Leaders of the 31-member military alliance agreed last June that China is a “systemic challenge” as allies grow increasingly conscious of the security threat Beijing poses in a variety of arenas, particularly in the long term. The NATO chief has repeated warnings about China’s efforts to build up its military and nuclear weapons, as well as what he has described as bullying behavior toward its neighbors and efforts to control critical infrastructure while spreading disinformation about the alliance.
“We don’t regard or assess China as an adversary but China poses some challenges to our interests, to our NATO values and to our security,” Stoltenberg said Tuesday. “That makes it even more important to engage with China because we see they are investing in new modern capabilities, long-range missiles, more than tripling the number of nuclear warheads in a few years.”
Stoltenberg said it would be in China’s interest to provide more transparency about their nuclear arsenal, including with verifiable limits. “China should be willing to sit down and engage in more arms control agreements, including limits on their number of nuclear warheads,” he said.
Officials from more than 60 governments including the US, China and South Korea met in February in The Hague to discuss the ethical and legal consequences of using AI in the military. Two days of wide-ranging discussions resulted in dozens of governments signing a “call to action” which acknowledged the responsibility humans have when deploying AI in the military.
–With assistance from Katharina Rosskopf.
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