Workshop on Dual-use technologies

Workshop : 2 May 2024 | h. 13.15-16.15

UCLouvain | CRIDES Louvain-la-Neuve, Leclercq 62 (and online)

The geopolitical situation requires new policy drivers for developing security-enhancing technologies (and a real industrial policy) in Europe. At the same time, nonproliferation regimes based on export controls must be strengthened. Our workshop aims at presenting and discussing some of the policy and legal challenges raised by dual-use technologies, i.e. those that can be used for both civil and military purposes, for ex. computers and artificial intelligence, in particular when developed by start-ups supported by research organisations.

Objectives of the workshop. We will not review in details the control regimes applicable to dual-use technologies[1]. We will rather discuss the evolving landscape for supporting and funding dual-use technologies, in particular AI, and discuss some prominent policy issues for mitigating the risks.

[1] For ex. Regulation 2021/821 setting up a Union regime for the control of exports, brokering, technical assistance, transit and transfer of dual-use items as amended by the Commission Delegated Regulation 2023/66.

Program - panel:

· On promoting innovative dual-use technologies – Views from DIANA (NATO): Thomas McSorley (General Counsel, Adj. Prof. Georgetown U))

· On export controls for dual-use technologies – Views from Research Organisations: Quentin Michel (Prof. ULiège and representative from EECARO), and Johan Evers (iMec, Leuven)

· On the funding – Views from the EU: TBC

· On the need to mitigate proliferation and the risks of autonomous weapons: Raphaël van Steenberghe, Prof. UCLouvain and Ecole Royale Militaire

Moderated by Alain Strowel, Prof. UCLouvain, together with the co-organizers Enguerrand Marique and François Wéry (Ass. Prof. UCLouvain, CRIDES)

Registration is free but mandatory.

Promoting and funding innovation in dual-use technologies. While the (traditional) European defence sector clearly benefits from new incentives at national level, innovative dual use technologies can be promoted through support and funding at supranational and EU level. The NATO has for ex. set-up DIANA[1], a new accelerator for dual use technologies. Today, start-ups as well as research organisations are more often confronted with the issues raised by dual-use technologies and export control regimes (this led to the creation of the European Export Control Association for Research Organisations[2]). At the same time, potential funding institutions, such as the EU and the European Investment Bank, have to go beyond the constraints imposed by the Treaties[3], drafted when civil peace and economic well-being were the focus of European integration.

Reducing the risks of AI-based weapons/technologies. While it is crucial to support innovation in technologies that could benefit the general public, the focus on dual-use technologies might reinforce a new military industrial complex that we had hoped to be something of the past (the Russian industrial machine shows however the opposite[4]). Since at least World War Two, we know that technologies (including the radar, jet power, and atomic bomb) are essential in the battlefields[5]. But the U.S. Rand project and DARPA[6] aiming to connect military planning and scientific research led to many civil tech we benefit today, such as the Internet, touch screens, GPS, etc. In Ukraine, drones seem to play a decisive role. This raises the risks of further development of lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS)[7] relying on AI technology[8]. Autonomy by AI could be a powerful part of future deterrence. But as LAWS are rather cheap and do not cost human life (on those using them), the risks of proliferation[9] are high. Those new risks including for fundamental rights must be discussed.

[1] DIANA is “the Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic, an organisation established by NATO to find and accelerate dual-use innovation capacity across the Alliance” “Among other technology areas, DIANA will focus on big data, artificial intelligence (AI), autonomy, quantum, biotechnologies and human enhancement, energy and propulsion, novel materials and advanced manufacturing and aerospace – specifically where they are dual-use” (see. www.diana.nato.int ).

[2] See www.eecaro.eu. Its funding members include some Belgian research entities such as IMEC, KULeuven, Liège Université as well as the German Fraunhofer and Dutch TNO. See also the UK based Higher Education Export Controls Association (HEECA).

[3] The Treaties prohibit the bloc to use its budget to fund military operations, but off-budget funding mechanisms such as the European Peace Facility are allowed, on top of the budget for the European Defence Fund to promote cutting-edge defence technologies.

[4] In the U.S., start-ups, such as Anduril (funded by Peter Thiel, the founder of PayPal) are taking a growing share in the US defence budget. OpenAI (the maker of ChatGPT) has changed its terms of service to allow military uses of its AI tools (FT, 30-31 March 2024).

[5] However, advanced technologies such as the first (Texas Instruments-made) microprocessors equipping the American bombs in Vietnam did not suffice to stop the long conflict. But the Pentagon investments had a profound effect on the development of the U.S. microchips industry (see Chris Miller, Chip War. The fight for the world’s most critical technology, Scribner, 2022).

[6] Rand is a contraction of “Research and development” while DARPA is the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency.

[7] Laws are defined as “weapon system[s] that, once activated, can select and engage targets without. further intervention by a human operator.” This autonomy is known as “human out of the loop” (see Office for Disarmament Affairs of the United Nations).

[8] See the use of the Lavender AI system in Gaza (‘The machine did it coldly’: Israel used AI to identify 37,000 Hamas targets, The Guardian, 4/4/2024) and the controversy around the use of DALL-E by the US DoD (Microsoft pitched OpenAI’s DALL-E as battlefield tool for US military, The Intercept, 10/4/2024).

[9] The anti-proliferation regimes include for instance the export control arrangements for nuclear-related exports or the Wassenaar Arrangement (www.wassenaar.org ) which has an extensive set of control lists and seeks to contribute to regional and international security by promoting transparency in transfers of conventional arms and dual-use technologies, in particular to avoid their acquisition by terrorists.