Artificial intelligence and humanitarian obligations

Abstract

Artificial Intelligence (AI) offers numerous opportunities to improve military Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance operations. And, modern militaries recognize the strategic value of reducing civilian harm. Grounded in these two assertions we focus on the transformative potential that AI ISR systems have for improving the respect for and protection of humanitarian relief operations. Specifically, we propose that establishing an interface for humanitarian organizations to military AI ISR systems can improve the current state of ad-hoc humanitarian notification systems, which are notoriously unreliable and ineffective for both parties to conflict and humanitarian organizations. We argue that such an interface can improve military awareness and understanding while also ensuring that states better satisfy their international humanitarian law obligations to respect and protect humanitarian relief personnel.