In Search for Military AI in the EU’s AI Strategic Discourse

The EU’s AI strategic documents, particularly Communications and the White Paper of the European Commission (the EC), suggest that the EU has chosen to frame its approach towards Artificial Intelligence (AI) focused on normative and economic matters excluding defence and military aspects of AI (Franke, 2021; Franke, Torreblanca, 2021). At the same time, different EU security-related agencies (the EDA and the ENISA) and the EU programmes (the EDIDP and the EDF) have prioritized AI as a leading technology and an enabler in building Europe’s defence capabilities and developing this industry, where certain EU’s allocations have already been approved. Therefore, this inconsistency between different institutions and their priorities in involving defence and security elements in AI framing raise further questions on how the EU positions itself and perceives its power in a relation to AI which is already considered as a technological epicenter of geopolitics (Polyakova, Donahoe, 2020). Therefore, the research aims 1) to unravel where and how defence and broader security elements are involved into this complex AI framing, and 2) to elaborate on what this AI strategic discourse suggests for the EU as a power debate. The research is based on the Constructivist theoretical approach in the International Relations arguing that the social reality is based on constitutive and intersubjective knowledge where identities become important in understanding actors, their perception and relation to others (Adler, 2013). Methodologically, the research applies a discourse analysis with a focus on AI-related strategic documents by the EU institutions (the EC, the European Parliament, and the European Council), agencies (the EDA and the ENISA) and involved bodies (the High-Level Expert Group on AI in particular). Speeches, interviews or public comments on AI by the EU officials and decision makers will be also included into the scope of the defined EU’s AI discourse. Overall, the research is positioned to propose a more comprehensive picture of the complexity of the AI framing in the EU and continuous controversy on AI defence matters which should also reveal on how the EU wants to identify itself in the context of an intensifying global geopolitical competition on AI.