By Andreas Jungherr, Univeristät Bamberg

Abstract:

The rapid integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into military operations raises pressing questions about public acceptance, ethical constraints, and political feasibility, particularly in democratic states. While existing research documents general scepticism toward autonomous weapons, systematic comparative evidence on how people evaluate different military AI applications and what drives these evaluations remains limited. This talk discusses an integrated model of the structure of military AI attitudes that combines general technology orientations, principled moral opposition to lethal autonomy, foreign-policy dispositions, and perceptions of international threat. We argue that support for military AI is shaped by two forces: stable predispositions, including beliefs about AI’s societal benefits and risks, support for an autonomous weapons taboo, and hawk–dove orientations; and contextual threat perceptions related to international disorder and distrust of major powers. Using original survey data from nine countries (China, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, and the United States), respondents evaluated six military AI applications varying in lethality and degree of automation.

Short Bio:

Andreas Jungherr holds the Chair for Political Science, especially Digital Transformation at the University of Bamberg and is Director at the Bavarian Research Institute for Digital Transformation (bidt) in Munich. He examines the impact of digital media on politics and society, with a special focus on Artificial Intelligence, political communication, and governance. He is the author of Retooling Politics: How Digital Media is Shaping Democracy (with Gonzalo Rivero and Daniel Gayo-Avello, Cambridge University Press: 2020) and Digital Transformations of the Public Arena (with Ralph Schroeder, Cambridge University Press: 2022).

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