Defence Dialogue: Rules of Engagement around AI Research

As international unrest persists, defence budgets grow, and the Dutch Ministry of Defence may expand its investment in knowledge and research, questions about the relationship between academia and the military are becoming increasingly pressing. How do we preserve academic values in collaboration with Defence? What are the opportunities? What potential dilemmas do researchers face? How could these dilemmas be mitigated?

This dialogue, part of a series on the relationship between academia and defence, focuses on the theme of rules of engagement for AI research. 

Dr Jessica Dorsey (AI & Law, Faculty of LEG) conducts research on the innovation, deployment, and impact of AI systems in the military domain. What are opportunities and challenges that collaboration with defence might pose?

LTCOL Herwin Meerveld MA coordinates the Data Science Centre of Excellence of the Netherlands Defence Academy, and can reflect on the ways in which Defence and universities are already interacting in research on AI, and what does this interaction lead to. His PhD research is about the use of large language models in decision support in a wargaming context and how that can be made more explainable to the users. 

Prof. Floris Bex (AI & Law, Faculty of Science & Faculty of Law, Economics and Governance) has developed a set of ‘rules of engagement’ to help inform researchers how to deal with the various dilemmas encountered in doing engaged research. While those focus on his own practices developed in various research projects with public sector stakeholders - including the Dutch Police-, he will reflect on how they apply to AI research in collaboration with defence. This will kick off the open conversation with the audience. 

Following brief opening contributions from the speakers, this dialogue will mostly revolve around open conversation with the audience. Here we tease out if universities and defence collaborate in AI research, what rules of engagement need to be formulated?

Any questions, concerns, and suggestions regarding collaboration with Defence are explicitly welcome.