The third session of the Virtual Routes Colloquium Autumn/Winter series hosts Ann-Katrien Oimann from Tilburg University.

Sign up here.

Abstract

The increasing sophistication of cyber threats—from routine data breaches to complex, long-term operations like Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs)—has led to a growing reliance on artificial intelligence (AI) in cybersecurity. AI is now deployed both defensively, to enhance threat detection and response, and offensively, to increase the scale and precision of cyberattacks. While the ethical implications of AI in physical autonomous systems have received significant attention in recent years, the use of AI in cyber operations remains largely underexplored from an ethical perspective. As autonomous capabilities in cyberspace expand with an ambiguous regulatory environment, ethical scrutiny becomes increasingly urgent. This article seeks to fill this gap by offering an initial normative evaluation of AI-enabled autonomous systems in cyberspace. First, we outline the bidirectional relationship between AI and cybersecurity and provide an overview of key features of cyber operations in the context of warfare. Second, we identify three ethical risks that arise in this domain. Third, we assess the implications of these risks for responsible deployment. In doing so, the article contributes to the broader AI ethics discourse by highlighting a domain that is both socially consequential and that remains largely overlooked in current  ethical analyses and regulatory debates.

Sign up to the session here.