Blurred lines: the convergence of military and civilian uses of AI & data use and its impact on liberal democracy

In this paper, the sociocultural, ethical, and political impact of civilian and military uses of AI and data will be explored. In an increasingly multi-polar world, a fierce global contest has emerged between NATO, China, and Russia concerning the ethics, governance and regulation of data, artificial intelligence, autonomous decision systems (ADS), and autonomous weapons systems (AWS). The use of AI and data systems like AWS in the military has been widely criticized for use cases like an algorithm determining targets for drone strikes. These systems carry the risk of algorithmic bias due to flaws in underlying training data and its interpretation, difficulty in maintaining meaningful human control, the potential for more conflict due to fewer barriers to military engagement, and uncertainty in accountability for machine error. This represents one of the principle challenges of "remote warfare" conducted through AWS. In turn, the interchange between AI and data technologies for civilian and military purposes risks blurring the traditional legal and normative lines between these domains. To address these challenges, it is important to consider the increasing convergence of civilian and military logics in the deployment of new technologies, following on a longstanding trend of military to civilian transfers of technology, research and development (R&D), hardware, software, culture, and personnel. It is thus argued that the trends toward integrating civilian and military law enforcement domains threaten to erode important normative and legal safeguards around human rights which are central to liberal democracy. By blurring the lines between civilian and combatant in the eyes of law enforcement, one risks accelerating the retreat of liberal democracy globally, giving rise to authoritarian police states.