This spring, I had the privilege of contributing to the Raisina Dialogue alongside a diverse team of colleagues and instructors from renowned international relations institutions around the world. The dialogue is India’s leading conference on geopolitics and geoeconomics and is held annually in New Delhi by the Ministry of External Affairs. Participating this year presented me with an invaluable opportunity to learn how people from different educational, political, and cultural backgrounds respond to the most pressing issues of our time. The theme of this year’s conference – Saṁskāra – Assertion, Accommodation, Advancement – was conducive to this multicultural learning environment, examining how societies “assert their truth, accommodate their contradictions, and advance through refinement.”[1]
This year, my team’s contribution to the dialogue involved the development of a short paper and accompanying presentation examining the use of artificial intelligence in lethal autonomous weapon systems. This is an interesting question for several reasons – in terms of ethics, effectiveness, and other elements involved in the transition from human controlled weapons to autonomous systems. However, as with all AI developments, the most interesting and challenging element of this question is the rapidly evolving legal and technological landscape. In essence, the capabilities of the technology are evolving faster than the legal and institutional frameworks designed to govern it. Drawing primarily on existing UN decisions and the limited domestic laws countries have adopted to restrict lethal autonomous weapon systems, we argued that these weapons can only be safe if meaningful human control and rigorous checks were required at every level of lethal decision-making. Put simply, we held to the old adage that as a computer can never be held accountable, a computer must never make a [lethal] decision. The temptation to cede more and more control to the AI system will grow as the capabilities of the system grow. However, as the capabilities of the system increase, so do the consequences for its misuse, reinforcing the need for a human control requirement.
Unfortunately, I was not able to attend the conference in person this year. The conflict with Iran unfolded the week of the event, with flight disruptions through the Middle East threatening to derail the entire Dialogue. Despite this disappointment, it was still one of the most educational experiences of my life. For the first time, I learned to work with people around the world – navigating different time zones, cultural differences, and approaches to the problem – and I will be forever grateful for this experience. I am also grateful for the opportunity to participate in such a distinguished event, and to represent UCF and the India Center on the global stage.
Thank you all for this opportunity, and good luck to those participating in the future,
Michael Mantione.
[1] https://raisinadialogue.org/raisina-2026/ ↩
