{"id":261301,"date":"2026-06-01T14:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T18:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/01\/ai-the-box-and-the-black\/"},"modified":"2026-06-01T14:55:32","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T18:55:32","slug":"ai-the-box-and-the-black","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/01\/ai-the-box-and-the-black\/","title":{"rendered":"AI, the Box, and the Black"},"content":{"rendered":"

AI, the Box, and the Black<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/lieber.westpoint.edu\/ai-box-black\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-06-01 14:30:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: lieber.westpoint.edu<\/a><\/p>\n

It was my honour and privilege to be invited to attend, and participate in a panel at, the U.S. Cyber Command Legal Conference, \u201cInnovation to Impact\u201d from 28 to 30 April 2026. The Conference addressed, inter alia, issues arising from the employment of artificial intelligence (AI) in the cyber domain. Many issues emerged, but one series of linked concerns, which I have been loosely contemplating since returning to the United Kingdom after the conference, solidified on Thursday morning, 7 May 2026, into a series of ten questions and thoughts which I offer, and briefly discuss, below.<\/p>\n

1. Can an AI process, the outcome of which cannot be explained, be regarded as discriminating?<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is of importance to the use of AI in connection with attacks because of the Additional Protocol I, Article 51(4) prohibition on indiscriminate attacks. Paragraph 5.3.2 and subsequent paragraphs in Chapters 5 and 6 of the U.S. Department of Defense Law of War Manual express the obligation in relation to the proportionality rule. Put in relation to that rule, the issue would be whether an AI-enabled attack process, the outcome of which cannot be predicted and the compliance of which with the proportionality rule cannot be determined with acceptable reliability, is legally acceptable.<\/p>\n

2. Are testing results a sufficient basis for \u201cexplaining\u201d outcomes, or does the black box of un-explainability mean the system is legally unacceptable?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Put another way, this question asks whether it is enough that in tests the AI system has performed to an acceptable standard if the method by which the data input to the AI is translated into its output remains unknown. So if such a method remains unknown or even unknowable, is the fact that the AI happens to have produced acceptable answers in tests enough to justify its employment in operations, despite the possibility that cannot be excluded that it is reaching those right answers for wrong reasons and may in the future apply the same logic to…<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AI, the Box, and the Black https:\/\/lieber.westpoint.edu\/ai-box-black\/ Publish Date: 2026-06-01 14:30:00 Source Domain: lieber.westpoint.edu It…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":261302,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/lieber.westpoint.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/getty-images-EOes_GNg7lQ-unsplash.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-261301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261301"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=261301"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261301\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":261303,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261301\/revisions\/261303"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/261302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=261301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=261301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}