Speech

Dear Nancy, thank you so much for inviting me to speak to this forum. And, like always, this is a wonderful initiative: to bring together this broad community of very diverse individuals, from public sector to private sector. And I am so delighted to be joining you virtually today.

Some of you may wonder why I so eagerly responded to Nancy’s invitation.  This is not only because of our long-lasting friendship, but also because of the unique composition of this remarkable group of yours.  It is quite rare for a senior NATO official to address at the same time experts from all innovative areas, from business and technical leaders, philosophers, anthropologists, neuroscientists, doctors, artists, professors, researchers, NGO and public sector leaders.  

Many of you taking part in this conference in Berlin, or online like I do, may also be surprised to hear a NATO official speak so passionately on the topic of Artificial Intelligence.  And on innovation more broadly.

But AI matters to NATO as much as it matters to our societies and economies. AI will not only change the way we live our lives but also the way we defend ourselves.

Exploring the relationship between AI and the conduct of warfare is something that NATO has been grappling with in recent years. We are taking these technological advances very seriously. Because they impact so much on our security, and security is NATO’s core job.

For many centuries, security meant addressing threats on land and at sea. In the last century also in the air.  But transformed by many recent advances in technology, threats today can take more shapes and come from multiple directions simultaneously.

They come from close at hand or from very far away, from remote sources. From humans or from unmanned systems. From space or from cyberspace. These trends are enhanced by rapidly developing technologies such as AI.   

In keeping our one billion citizens safe requires NATO to tackle threats in the physical and virtual and digital worlds.

This means that today we need to defend ourselves against bullets and bombs, but also against algorithms and bots.

I am proud to say that we are at the forefront of innovation. Especially when it comes to innovating in the defence and security sector.

Some of our Allies, not least the United States, are already leading innovation in AI research and development. France and the UK allocate significant resources to develop AI in the defence sector. And a growing number of other Allies are making advances in this field as well.

But also as an organisation, NATO has the tools, the structures and the people in place to foster innovation.

To give you some examples, we have an Innovation Board at NATO which coordinates innovation efforts within the entire organisation. I chair this board. And it brings together external experts to challenge our existing approaches and procedures to this new and emerging technology.

There is also a dedicated team – an Innovation Unit – at NATO here in Brussels at our Headquarters. And all this eco-system of smart, talented and dedicated people helps NATO to better understand the implications of emerging and disruptive technologies, like the AI we are discussing today.

Our Strategic Command located in Norfolk Virginia, Allied Command Transformation, is leading NATO’s work on innovation and disruptive technologies – big data, artificial intelligence, robotics.

We have a Science and Technology office that taps into an active network of about 5,000 people. They, in turn, can reach out to an extended network of 200,000 colleagues. This makes our Science and Technology network the world’s largest collaborative research forum in the field of defence and security.

The last example I want to mention today is the office for Women, Peace and Security at NATO Headquarters in Brussels. They are in the lead when it comes to finding innovative ways to mainstream gender across everything NATO does.

As part of its work, the WPS team is looking into the gendered impact of new tech. As you are very well aware, AI tools can contribute to the deepening of inequalities based on inherent biases. It can also create tools that challenge biases and stereotypes to help advance gender equality – any equality in a broader sense.

NATO’s ability to innovate is what has guaranteed our military superiority – including our technological edge – for the last seven decades.

But NATO and the West – the political West - may now be on the verge of a new ‘Sputnik Moment’, moments where non-Western powers might actually overtake us. 

We are competing with authoritarian regimes that misuse and abuse new technologies, including AI, to destabilise us, and to manipulate and disrupt our free and democratic way of life.   

Last week, we just hosted and I chaired a North Atlantic Council meeting with the Executive Vice-President of the European Commission, Margrethe Vestager, who is in charge of A Europe Fit for the Digital Age.  And also she is the Commissioner for Competition.  And it was a very, very intense and useful exchange of views between NATO and the EU because we need all the components of the political West, and NATO and the EU are two sides of the same coin to focus on new technology.  And to make sure that we enforce complementarity and cooperation between NATO and the EU, and also harness the talent that exists all over the democratic world. 

We must retain our technological edge and remain competitive in a more and more contested and competitive space. And for this, NATO needs to focus on the following:

We need to keep investing in modern, advanced technology. Because we cannot fight tomorrow’s threats with yesterday’s tools. And to keep us safe, we must ensure that our own militaries can perform better and faster.

We need to embrace the great opportunities that new technologies bring, both for our security and, of course, for our economic competitiveness. And also for the wellbeing of our citizens. We also need to ensure our societies and nations are resilient to these new challenges. These include data protection, impacts on labour markets, and protection from nefarious foreign investments and intellectual property theft – that is where there is a need to fight it in a far more comprehensive way.

We need also to expand much more, and with more courage, our partnership with the private sector.  Because private companies, from big tech to small start-ups, are driving technological innovation. So, we want to work closely with them and further promote the strengthening of our vibrant innovation eco-systems.  These need to include universities and academics, as well as civil society.

In doing so, we need to leverage the comparative advantage that NATO has as an alliance. Together, our 30 countries, our 30 Allied nations, have an abundance of world-class academic institutions, the finest scientific researchers, amazingly creative start-ups and, yes, we have something that our competitors do not have – a free and open society – where talent can thrive, where people can speak their minds, they can innovate, they can make progress and can live fulfilled lives.  And this is potential for even more synergies across the Euro-Atlantic area, from Silicon Valley to Estonia.  And from the booming R&D and IT sectors in Romania to Vancouver. This is some great talent that we should tap into. And making sure that Allies, irrespective of their size, or the level of development of their economies, remain competitive and also to make sure that we keep the most important glue, the fundamental underpinning of our Alliance – our values: democracy, individual liberty, the rule of law, and human rights. 

I strongly believe that free, open and democratic societies are far more conducive for innovation and progress than their opposites.  Also, as a Romanian, who has lived almost half of his life under Communist oppression, I know what I am talking about. And we are taking freedom and liberty very seriously.

To be true to our values, it is important to develop also international norms, rules and regulations for new technologies that will not stifle innovation, but will create a predictable environment for them to use their positive side for human advancement.  We cannot allow anything and everything to happen in this space.

Our competitors may not want to face up to the important ethical dimensions in their race to develop and deploy technologies. But we here at NATO, we do. And we are strongly committed to International Laws and International Humanitarian Law.

Now, we are prepared to put on the table the hard ethical questions pertaining to emerging and disruptive technologies and discuss them with other stakeholders in an open mind-set.

And, to conclude, just a few months ago, the NATO Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, launched a forward-looking reflection on NATO in the next decade. We name it ‘NATO 2030’.

It is about making NATO stronger and prepared to tackle the unexpected in a turbulent world. We have been the most successful alliance in human history. We need to continue to be doing that. And much of the unexpected, this kind of turbulence we see all over comes from the rapid pace of technological change. Of course, from geo-political change, but also from technological change. So, we need to continue to adapt to this digital revolution.

As we do this, we want to engage with people like you, with smart, superb intellectuals and experts like yourselves.

Your knowledge, your experience, your ideas – and also your ethical drive on the application of AI, in particular, and also its military application, are extremely valuable to us. And I hope that we can continue to engage together. With your help we can be better prepared today for the digital challenges of tomorrow.

I encourage all my colleagues across the NATO enterprise to reach out to you. As I do today, we need to engage with you in a more systematic way. And I want to encourage all of you to reach out to us because you are knocking here on open doors. We are here to be part of that great eco-system that keeps our democracies strong, our economies competitive, and our security impenetrable.

Thank you again, Nancy.  Good luck with your great work. And I will be watching you and listening to you together with my colleagues here at the NATO Headquarters in Brussels.  Good luck!