APPLICATIONS OF INTELLIGENT TECHNOLOGIES AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE-BASED SYSTEMS TO SUPPORT DECISION-MAKING IN THE MILITARY AND DEFENSE SECTOR

The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into the military and defense sector constitutes a paradigmatic shift with far-reaching ethical, legal, and strategic consequences. As AI-enabled systems permeate autonomous operations, intelligence analysis, strategic planning, and cybersecurity, their capacity to accelerate decision-making and optimize performance simultaneously challenges foundational moral norms governing armed conflict. This paper explores the profound ethical implications of deploying AI in military contexts, focusing on the tension between machine autonomy and human moral agency. Drawing from interdisciplinary perspectives—philosophy of technology, applied ethics, international law, and systems engineering—it argues that the operational utility of AI must be carefully reconciled with the preservation of human dignity, accountability, and normative clarity in decision-making processes.

The discussion foregrounds five key ethical principles that must undergird responsible AI use in defense: fairness, transparency and explainability, accountability, non-maleficence, and respect for privacy. Particular attention is devoted to algorithmic bias and hallucinations, which risk amplifying historical inequities and introducing strategic disinformation. The analysis problematizes the notion of “meaningful human control,” contending that the acceleration and opacity of advanced AI systems render this principle increasingly fragile. The paper advocates for the construction of a moral architecture around military AI—comprising legal frameworks, institutional accountability, and moral literacy among developers and operators. It ultimately posits that AI in warfare must not merely serve strategic objectives but embody the ethical ideals it claims to defend. Only through embedding AI within a robust ethical scaffold can we ensure that it augments rather than erodes the moral foundations of contemporary security paradigms. This paper calls for proactive interdisciplinary engagement to preempt the normalization of ethically detached autonomous warfare and to reimagine AI as a tool of moral resilience in the age of algorithmic conflict.