Description
In this paper, I consider the potential integration of artificial intelligence into resort-to-force decision making from a Just War perspective. I evaluate two principles from this tradition: 1) the jus ad bellum principle of “reasonable prospect of success”; and 2) the more recent jus ad vim principle of “the probability of escalation”. More than any other principles of Just War, these prudential standards seem amenable to the probabilistic reasoning of AI-driven systems. I argue, however, that this optimism in the efficiency and humanizing potential of AI-optimized military operations is misplaced. We need to cultivate a tragic sensibility in war – a recognition of the inescapable limits of foresight, the permanence of uncertainty, and the dangers of unconstrained ambition. False confidence in the efficacy of these systems will blind us to their technical limits. It will also, more seriously, obscure the deleterious impact of AI on the process of resort-to-force decision-making; its potential to suffocate the moral and political wisdom so essential to the responsible exercise of violence on the international stage.
