Deceptive use of AI and technology is turning the mind into the main battlefield of the 21st century, according to IE University

 Artificial intelligence (AI) and other emerging technologies are enabling state and non-state actors to directly influence citizens’ behavior and decision-making, according to a paper published by IE University’s Center for the Governance of Change (CGC). "The Battle for the Mind: Understanding and Addressing Cognitive Warfare and its Emerging Technologies" reflects on the discussions that took place at a high-level roundtable on cognitive warfare hosted by the CGC during the 2024 Munich Security Conference, with Margrethe Vestager, Arancha González Laya, Anne-Marie Slaughter, and other renowned policymakers and industry leaders.

The policy paper delves into the emergence of the cognitive domain as the sixth domain of warfare – after land, sea, air, outer space, and cyber space. 

• Today, state and non-state actors have the means and incentives to play with our thoughts and disrupt our shared vision of reality, with objectives as diverse as thwarting specific military maneuvers to destabilizing entire societies and multilateral cooperation.
• The increasing use of misleading narratives and deceptive AI in democratic processes, the war in Ukraine, or the war between Israel and Hamas indicate the growing geopolitical interest in controlling people's perceptions.
• Citizens of liberal democracies are particularly vulnerable to cognitive manipulation as the attention economy has taken a toll on our cognition and ability to think critically, trust in institutions is at an unprecedented low, and societal polarization is at its peak. 

The study also explains how emerging technologies are enabling the development of cognitive warfare, taking manipulation and disinformation campaigns to a new level:

• The growing amount of personal data we generate when browsing social media, shopping online, or using AI chatbots like ChatGPT, provides information about our preferences, behaviors, and emotional states, facilitating accurate profiling and microtargeting for various purposes. 
• The advent of Generative AI, with its ability to learn from its interlocutors and create highly realistic content in seconds, will increasingly allow to hit very differently individuals within a target audience efficiently and effectively by using the right prompts at the right time, with little human intervention. 
• In the near future, AR, VR or BCIs, and the neural data their use generates, may also enable actors to hack the “reality” around us, or even directly our moods and reactions, to shape our behavior.

In order to protect the international liberal order from the risks of cognitive warfare and its emerging technologies, the paper advances three sets of recommendations:

• Intensify efforts to understand and raise awareness about the mechanisms and implications of cognitive warfare across academia, industry, and defense sectors to effectively prepare citizens and policymakers.
• Develop a comprehensive governance framework for cognitive warfare and its emerging technologies, determining how or in which cases existing international law applies, and establishing clear mechanisms for attribution and accountability.
• Amplify collaboration among diverse stakeholders to capitalize upon the potential of emerging technologies to address the vulnerabilities of liberal democracies and protect them from the risks of cognitive warfare. 

"Technology will continue to change the character of conflict, especially in the current context of hybrid threats. Efforts to design an effective governance system for these new technologies will be key to international and national security and to the preservation of the fundamental rights of individuals."
Irene Blázquez, Director of the Center for the Governance of Change

This is one of the CGC's new flagship research topics due to its transcendental nature and its potential to change the agendas of states, international organizations, corporations, and societies. We aim to develop an ambitious research project with strategic partners who have already included this topic in their agendas with strategic vision, as it lies at the frontier of knowledge and transformation.

To download the full paper, please click here