Good morning, respected chairperson, honourable judges, my worthy
opponents, and dear friends.
Let’s be clear from the start. The topic today is not “Is war good?”. The
answer to that is always no. War is a tragedy. It is the ultimate failure of
human diplomacy.
But it is a failure that happens. And when it does, we are left with a grim
responsibility: to minimise the horror. To reduce the suffering. To make the
tragedy… less tragic. My opponents today will paint a scary picture of
Terminator robots and a world out of control. They will use fear. I am here to
talk about facts, about potential, and about our moral duty.
And it is my firm belief that Artificial Intelligence, for the first time in history,
gives us the tools to make warfare more ethical.
Think about the soldier. Not a machine, but a person. A person who is tired,
scared, and running on adrenaline. In the chaos of battle, they have a split
second to decide if the shadow in the distance is an enemy combatant or a
child running home. A split second to make a decision that could haunt them
for the rest of their lives. We call this “moral injury”—the wound on a
soldier’s soul.
Now, imagine a different scenario. An AI-driven drone identifies a threat. It
sends clear, unbiased data back to a human operator in a command centre,
miles away from the danger. That operator, calm and rational, makes the
final call. We are not removing the human from the decision; we are
removing the chaos, the fear, and the split-second panic *from* the human’s
decision. Is it not more ethical to protect the conscience of our soldiers, to
prevent them from carrying a burden that no human should have to bear?
But the true ethics of war aren’t just about *how* we fight. They are about
*why* we fight, and why conflicts spiral out of control. Wars escalate because
of human emotion. Because of pride, because of anger, because of a leader’s
ego. A small skirmish becomes a full-blown war because someone gets
provoked.
An AI cannot be provoked.
An AI-powered defensive system cannot be baited or insulted. It operates on
pure, cold logic. It follows its programmed rules of engagement, and nothing
else. An aggressor knows they cannot trigger an irrational, emotional,
overwhelming response. This stability, this predictability, forces everyone to
take a step back. It creates space for the one thing that can actually stop a
war: talking. The most ethical battle, my friends, is the one that is never
fought. AI can be the ultimate firewall against the emotional sparks that
ignite the flames of war.
And finally, let’s talk about what happens when the fighting stops. The war
isn’t over. The fields are littered with landmines. The evidence of war crimes
is buried in the rubble. Justice is a distant dream.
Here, AI offers a promise of a just aftermath. AI systems can scan thousands
of square kilometres to find and map deadly landmines, saving the lives of
children who just want to play in their fields again. AI can sift through
mountains of satellite images and communications to provide the irrefutable
proof needed to bring war criminals to justice. It helps us clean up the horrific
mess that war leaves behind. An ethical war must include an ethical clean-
up.
So, when my opponents talk about the risks of AI, I want you to ask them:
what is the alternative? The status quo? A world where we accept collateral
damage, where we accept that our soldiers will be psychologically scarred,
where wars escalate out of pride, and where justice is impossible to find?
That is not an ethical choice. That is a choice for more of the same suffering.
AI is not a monster from a movie. It is a tool. A tool that offers us a chance to
bring logic to the chaos, to bring safety to the aftermath, and to protect the
very humanity of the people we ask to fight for us. It is a chance to make a
terrible thing… just a little less terrible.
And that is a chance we have a moral obligation to take.
Thank you.
