How AI is, could, and shouldn't be used in military and other national security contexts is a topic of growing importance. Recent conflicts on the battlefield, and between the U.S. military and a major AI lab, are forcing conversations about legal, ethical, and appropriate business limitations for increasingly powerful AI tools. Michael Horowitz, a Political Science professor and Director of Perry World House at the University of Pennsylvania, is one of the world's leading experts on military AI and autonomous weapons. In this episode, drawing on his two stints in the U.S. Department of Defense, Horowitz walks through the major buckets of military AI use. He explains why militaries are, in some ways, more incentivized than any other institution to get AI governance right, but genuine tensions among speed, effectiveness, and meaningful human control can make responsible military AI difficult in practice. We cover Anthropic's recent dispute with the Pentagon as a case study in the fragile and increasingly consequential relationship between Silicon Valley and the defense establishment.

Michael C. Horowitz is the Richard Perry Professor of Political Science and Director of Perry World House at the University of Pennsylvania, and a Senior Fellow for Technology and Innovation at the Council on Foreign Relations. From 2022 to 2024, he served as U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Force Development and Emerging Capabilities, where he was the principal author of the U.S. Political Declaration on Responsible Military Use of AI and Autonomy. He is the author of The Diffusion of Military Power: Causes and Consequences for International Politics and co-author of Why Leaders Fight.

Transcript

Battles of Precise Mass: Technology Is Remaking War — and America Must Adapt (Foreign Affairs, 2024)

The Ethics & Morality of Robotic Warfare: Assessing the Debate over Autonomous Weapons (Daedalus, 2016)

Rules of Engagement (Penn Gazette, 2025)