Peace, security and Artificial Intelligence

Zoom Webinar (Registration here)

The dual-use nature and inherent repurposability of artificial intelligence (AI) systems is bringing about fundamental challenges across disciplines and sectors. Accordingly, these technologies could be maliciously used or misused in several ways that could pose a threat to international peace and security. Among these uses, there are autonomous weapons function to be concerned about such as target selection and engagement of use of force, but also about non-weapons related functions, such as decision support systems, data gathering, identifying individuals and generating information and misinformation. Moreover, the increasing weaponization of AI and its convergence with Weapons of Mass Destruction– such as biological weapons, nuclear weapons, chemical weapons and drone swarms– pose extreme risks to humanity.

In any case, it would be a narrow view to limit these concerns to the military domain since they are present at large in the wider security domain. This is so, because the same technology used by armed forces can equally be used in conflict and non-conflict zones by other State-actors such as law enforcement and border control authorities, also during peacetime. Additionally, once developed, these technologies could be easier to access, replicate and deploy. Consequently, non-State actors such as terrorist groups and organized crime could maliciously use it to undermine States’ sovereignty and threaten national, regional or international peace and security.

Therefore, this lecture will delve into the inherent risks that AI systems pose across the broader security domain, which are mentioned above, and will conclude with some insights on proposed governance models to prevent and mitigate the risks associated with these technologies. The afore include the need to elaborate binding norms, standards, and guidelines, as well as oversight, monitoring, validation and verification functions through a centralised authority with the appropriate mechanisms to enforce these regulations and ensure compliance through accountability, remedies for harm and emergency responses.

Lecturer

Jimena Sofia Viveros Alvarez

(Chief of Staff and Head Legal Advisor to Justice Loretta Ortiz at the Mexican Supreme Court)

Moderator

Arisa Ema

(Associate Professor, Tokyo College, The University of Tokyo)

14:00-14:40 Lecture, Jimena Sofia Viveros Alvarez, Chief of Staff and Head Legal Advisor to Justice Loretta Ortiz at the Mexican Supreme Court

14:40-15:00 Discussion, Q&A

Jimena Sofía Viveros Álvarez is a distinguished lawyer and scholar, member of the United Nations Secretary General’s High-Level Advisory Body on Artificial Intelligence (AI), tasked with advancing recommendations for the global governance of AI. Additionally, she is a Commissioner within the Global Commission on Responsible AI in the military domain (GC-REAIM), and an AI expert for the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), participating in the working groups on AI risks and accountability, as well as in the group on AI incidents. In Mexico, she serves as Chief of Staff and Head Legal Advisor of Justice Loretta Ortiz Ahlf, in Mexico’s Supreme Court of Justice, and previously held the same position at the Federal Judicial Council.

Her prior roles include national leadership positions at the Ministry of Security and Civilian Protection, and at the Federal Tax and Finance Prosecutor’s Office, serving at the level of Director General. Internationally, she has worked at the International Criminal Court, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, and the United Nations Verification Mission in Colombia for the disarmament of the FARC. She has also worked for the Lebanese Supreme Court, in addition to NGOs in Kenya, Cambodia and Palestine.

She is a published author on AI and Autonomous Weapons Systems, highlighting the following books and publications: Autonomous Weapons Systems: The Accountability Conundrum, published in 2021 by the Legal Research Institute of the National Autonomous University of Mexico separately in English and Spanish; The Ultimate and Perhaps the Last Paradigm Shift – Artificial Intelligence, published in 2021 by Wolters Kluwer separately in English and Spanish; AI and the International Responsibility of States, published in 2022 by the Legal Research Institute of the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Spanish; Autonomous Weapons Systems and the Use of Force, published in 2023 by Ethics Press in English; Drone Swarms as Weapons of Mass Destruction, published in April 2024 by Opinio Juris in English. Moreover, she is also a prominent author on other fields of law.

Ms. Viveros acquired her law degree at the Iberoamerican University in Mexico City and obtained her LL.M. in Public International Law from Leiden University. Currently, she is finalizing her Doctoral thesis at Cologne University, supervised by Dr. Claus Kreß, on the impact of AI and autonomous weapons systems on the international peace and security law and policy framework with concrete propositions to achieve global governance from different legal perspectives.