On the 29th and 30th of October 2024, the ELN convened a two-day workshop as part of its project, “Simulating Technological Complexity & Advancing Risk Reduction”, to explore how experimental AI-driven prototypes might enhance decision-making and reduce risks associated with Emerging and Disruptive Technologies in the nuclear domain.
In this special bonus episode of the NEVER podcast – Ok, Doomer!, we take a deep dive into the ELN’s Nuclear and New Technologies project, which aims to identify the impacts of emerging and disruptive technologies (EDT) on nuclear decision-making and present practical steps to mitigate the potentially disruptive effects. Featuring discussions on why it’s best to explore the aggregate impact of EDTs as well as examining them individually, an introduction to the ELN’s Guardrails and Self-Assessment (GSA) Framework for Emerging and Disruptive Technologies (EDTs), and the history of nuclear fail-safe reviews.
The war in Ukraine has become a theatre for military innovation due to the integration of new technologies on the battlefield which have transformed warfighting strategies. Rizwana Abbasi writes that Ukraine offers lessons on the employment of integrated technologies to engage in cross-domain warfare that militaries in South Asia could learn from. As new technologies risk increasing nuclear dangers in the South Asian context she offers potential ways forward for India and Pakistan to reduce escalations risks.
The threats the UK faces today are more nuanced and diverse than in the Cold War era, ranging from state-sponsored cyber-attacks to sophisticated disinformation campaigns. ELN Policy Fellow Nikita Gryazin argues that these challenges require a shift in focus from traditional nuclear deterrence to modern defensive and offensive cyber capabilities.
The United Kingdom’s latest nuclear doctrine suggests that severe cyber-attacks on their national or critical infrastructure could provoke a nuclear response. Despite this, cyber-attacks against the UK have surged over the past decade. Eva-Nour Repussard, YGLN member and Policy Fellow at BASIC, writes that instead of deterrence by punishment, the UK should seek to increase its resilience to cyber-attacks and focus on a strategy of deterrence by denial regarding cyber threats.
As countries continue incorporating AI into conventional military systems, they should prepare themselves for the risk that adversaries are likely already working to exploit weaknesses in AI models by threatening datasets at the core of AI. To address this, Alice Saltini writes that states should develop metrics to assess how cyber vulnerabilities could impact AI integration.