NATO's revised AI Strategy and the Principles of Responsible Use

The NATO PRUAI explainer is the six-principle catalog. This page is the strategy those principles sit in: the 22 October 2021 summary and the 10 July 2024 revised-strategy summary. NATO pages still say Artificial Intelligence, AI Strategy, and Principles of Responsible Use (PRUs). This article uses those names. Super Intelligence (SI) is this site’s own-voice term for current U.S. executive-branch policy; it does not rewrite NATO titles. Human-control wording is collected separately in Human-machine teaming in DoD and NATO guidance.

What the 2021 summary put at the front

The 2021 summary says AI will likely affect the full spectrum of activities undertaken by the Alliance in support of its three core tasks; collective defence, crisis management, and cooperative security. The aim of that strategy is fourfold, including to accelerate and mainstream AI adoption in capability development and delivery, enhancing interoperability within the Alliance.

At the forefront of this Strategy lie the NATO Principles of Responsible Use for AI in Defence. They do not affect or supersede existing obligations and commitments, both national and international. They apply across all types of AI applications and should be considered a baseline for Allies as they use AI in the context of defence and security, noting that some Allies already have national principles of responsible use.

The six principles, in the 2021 wording Allies and NATO commit to ensuring for applications they develop and consider for deployment, are Lawfulness; Responsibility and Accountability; Explainability and Traceability; Reliability; Governability; and Bias Mitigation. Full sentences are on the explainer.

What the 2024 revision actually changed

NATO’s 10 July 2024 news release says the revised strategy aims to accelerate the use of AI technologies within NATO in a safe and responsible way. It builds on one published in 2021 and takes account of recent advances in AI technologies, such as generative AI, and AI-enabled information tools. Priorities named there include advancing the implementation of NATO’s Principles of Responsible Use; increasing interoperability between AI systems throughout the Alliance; the combination of AI with other emerging disruptive technologies; and expanding the ecosystem through Allied industry and academia, NATO’s Defence Innovation Accelerator DIANA, the NATO Innovation Fund and like-minded partners. For the first time, the strategy also identifies AI-enabled disinformation, information operations and gender-based violence as issues of concern.

The revised-strategy summary restates that Allies endorsed six Principles of Responsible Use (PRUs) for AI in Defence, i.e. Lawfulness, Responsibility and Accountability, Explainability and Traceability, Reliability, Governability and Bias Mitigation. The four aims include accelerate and mainstream AI adoption in capability development and delivery, enhancing interoperability as a key element within the Alliance, including through the delivery of AI Use Cases.

Updated outcomes that name tests, planning or industry include:

• an increasing range of AI use cases and specific requirements for the NATO Enterprise, adhering to NATO’s PRUs, which will benefit from outcomes of the Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic (DIANA) challenge areas;
• measurable steps to integrate AI, enabled by quality data, into appropriate Allied capabilities through commitments in the NATO Defence Planning Process;
• key elements of an Alliance-wide AI Testing, Evaluation, Verification & Validation (TEV&V) landscape that will utilize the network of DIANA affiliated Test Centres;
• growing interoperability between all AI systems throughout the Alliance.

Allied testing facilities need to be able to determine if AI applications can be used safely and in accordance with NATO’s PRUs. On industry: Allies, DIANA and the NATO Innovation Fund (NIF) can secure innovative AI solutions to NATO defence needs from the private sector and encourage Allied industry to develop, design and build AI systems in accordance with Alliance requirements and NATO’s PRUs.

The same-day Washington Summit Declaration says Allies will implement our revised Artificial Intelligence Strategy and further promote principles of responsible use which underpin our work.

How NATO says it will operationalise the PRUs

The Data and Artificial Intelligence Review Board (DARB) is the focal point for NATO’s efforts to govern responsible development and use of AI by helping operationalise PRUs. Its first line of effort is to produce RAI toolkits. A key deliverable named in 2022 is developing the RAI certification standard, described as a process standard. NATO Enterprise stakeholders will ensure compliance with the RAI certification standard, once issued. At national level, Allies may choose to use RAI toolkits on a voluntary basis.

We have not found a later official NATO page on this source list that publishes that certification standard as a finished public specification, so we do not treat it as issued.

What the strategy is not

NATO says the principles do not affect or supersede existing obligations. They are not a substitute for DoD Responsible AI, UK MOD JSP 936, or the DND/CAF Artificial Intelligence Strategy. Completing the US AIA Toolkit is not, on any page we cite, a NATO PRU certificate.

Questions

Does the 2024 revision replace the six principles?

No. The 2024 summary restates the same six PRUs. What it adds is implementation: TEV&V, DIANA test centres, the NATO Defence Planning Process, generative AI as context, and Allied industry developing systems in accordance with Alliance requirements and NATO’s PRUs.

Is the DARB RAI certification standard a product mark a vendor can buy?

The 2022 text calls it a process standard that Enterprise stakeholders will comply with once issued. We found no public issued specification on the sources above.