Speaking at the Global Nobel Laureates Assembly in Castel Gandolfo, former federal Labor MP Melissa Parke warned that artificial intelligence is increasing the risks posed by nuclear weapons and called for a renewed commitment to dialogue and disarmament. Source: Vatican News.
Ms Parke, the executive director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, is urging world leaders to reject deterrence in favour of dialogue, diplomacy and disarmament.
Speaking on the sidelines of the Global Nobel Laureates Assembly on Artificial Intelligence and Nuclear War at the Borgo Laudato Si’ in Castel Gandolfo, Ms Parke challenged the very premise of nuclear deterrence, arguing that lasting peace cannot be built on the threat of mass destruction.
“I think it’s inherent in the word deterrence, which has as its root the word ‘terror’,” she said. “Is that the way we want to live? Do we want to live in a war-shaped world? Or do we want to live in a world that’s about love, cooperation and getting on with each other? Because that is the true basis of humanity, I think.”
Ms Parke said recent conflicts have shown the limits of deterrence as a security strategy. Pointing to the wars in Ukraine and Iran, she said nuclear weapons “have not delivered peace” and “haven’t prevented war”.
“They have been strategically irrelevant, extremely dangerous and extremely expensive, but strategically irrelevant,” she said. Yet, Ms Parke warned, they continue to “sit in the background and create an existential threat to humanity for every moment they continue to exist.”
She said the current global security climate was characterised by “an absolute lack of trust”, with conflicts involving nuclear-armed states unfolding alongside the breakdown of arms control agreements, renewed nuclear threats and a new nuclear arms race.
“What we’re seeing is this very sky-high risk of the use of nuclear weapons,” she said, warning that the integration of artificial intelligence into military systems is exacerbating that danger.
Rather than continuing down a path of militarisation, she called for “a new way of thinking” based on “dialogue rather than confrontation, diplomacy rather than militarisation, and disarmament rather than proliferation”.
FULLS TORY
Melissa Parke: Nuclear weapons and AI demand a new way of thinking (By Francesca Merlo, Vatican News)
