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  "description": "Human-centred AI puts people before technology. But what happens when artificial intelligence begins shaping decisions in war? A reflection on ethics, responsibility and human judgement in an age of machine-assisted conflict.",
  "path": "/when-human-centred-ai-meets-the-realities-of-war/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-03-06T07:22:23.000Z",
  "site": "https://www.nevillehobson.io",
  "tags": [
    "Silvia Cambié",
    "IABC",
    "ethics and artificial intelligence",
    "reporting in _The Washington Post_",
    "current conflict involving Iran",
    "Maven intelligence platform",
    "Claude",
    "SkyNet",
    "the future of ethical AI",
    "a conversation for the _For Immediate Release_ podcast",
    "Monsignor Paul Tighe",
    "_human-centred AI isn't a slogan – it's a choice_"
  ],
  "textContent": "Over the past year, Silvia Cambié and I have been working together and thinking deeply about what we call _human-centred AI_. It’s an idea that has increasingly shaped how we approach the subject of artificial intelligence – not from the perspective of technology first, but from the perspective of people.\n\nWhat does AI mean for human judgement? For accountability? For the values organisations claim to uphold?\n\nSuch questions have been at the heart of the work we’ve been doing with the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC), particularly through the _AI Leadership & Communication Shared Interest Group_ we founded in December. They were also central to a webinar we hosted for IABC last month on ethics and artificial intelligence.\n\n💡\n\nMuch of our thinking comes down to a simple shift in perspective: putting humanity, not technology, at the centre of how organisations approach AI.\n\nThe core idea is straightforward. When organisations adopt AI, the starting point should not be the technology itself but its human consequences. What problems are we trying to solve? How do decisions remain accountable? And how do we ensure that human judgement and responsibility remain central?\n\nWhich is why a news report I read this week felt particularly striking.\n\n## **From ethical frameworks to the realities of war**\n\nAccording to reporting in _The Washington Post_ on 4 March, the U.S. military has been using advanced artificial intelligence systems as part of its operational planning in the current conflict involving Iran. The Pentagon’s Maven intelligence platform – developed by Palantir – is analysing large volumes of intelligence data and helping generate prioritised target lists. Embedded within that system is Claude, the AI model created by Anthropic.\n\nThe article describes how AI helps process intelligence from multiple sources and suggests possible targets more quickly than human analysts could manage alone.\n\nA Washington Post report describes how AI tools are helping analyse intelligence and prioritise targets in the Iran conflict.\n\nTo be clear, humans are still responsible for operational decisions. But the technology is increasingly involved in analysing information and shaping the options being considered.\n\nFor years, debates about AI in warfare focused on future scenarios – SkyNet-like autonomous weapons systems or machines making battlefield decisions independently. What we appear to be seeing now is something more immediate: artificial intelligence becoming part of the analytical infrastructure of military operations.\n\n\"It's dark news for the future of ethical AI,\" wrote _The Conversation_ a few days ago.\n\nIn the technology sector we often hear about responsible AI, ethical AI and human-centred AI. Many companies – including the developers of these models – emphasise the importance of aligning AI with human values and maintaining meaningful human oversight.\n\nThose principles matter. They are part of the reason conversations about AI ethics have become so prominent over the past year.\n\nBut warfare exists in a very different environment.\n\nGovernments have always pursued technological advantage when national security is at stake. From radar to satellites to cyber capabilities, technologies that offer strategic benefits are rapidly incorporated into military systems once they prove useful.\n\nSeen through that lens, the use of AI in military intelligence and planning may not be surprising. If a technology helps analyse complex information faster or more effectively, the incentive to adopt it is powerful.\n\nStill, the ethical tension remains difficult to ignore.\n\nExperts quoted in the _Washington Post_ note that AI systems can make mistakes and that human verification is essential when decisions involve life and death.\n\nEven so, the growing role of AI in analysing intelligence and prioritising information raises questions about how human judgement interacts with machine-generated insight.\n\n## **Where the wisdom of the heart fits**\n\nLast summer, in a conversation for the _For Immediate Release_ podcast that I co-host with Shel Holtz, the three of us – Silvia, Shel and me – spoke with Monsignor Paul Tighe of the Vatican about artificial intelligence and ethics. During that discussion, he used a phrase that has stayed with me: _“the wisdom of the heart.”_\n\nHis point was that as technologies become more powerful, the real challenge is not simply technical capability. It is ensuring that human judgement, reflection and moral responsibility remain at the centre of how those technologies are used.\n\nThat idea feels particularly relevant when artificial intelligence begins to shape decisions in environments where the stakes could not be higher.\n\nNone of this means governments will stop using artificial intelligence in conflict. History suggests quite the opposite. Once technologies prove strategically valuable, they rarely remain outside military systems for long.\n\nBut the story still leaves an important question hanging in the air.\n\n💡\n\nOver the past year, Silvia and I have argued that organisations should approach AI with humanity – not technology – at the centre of their thinking. That principle feels straightforward enough when we are talking about workplaces, productivity or communication.\n\nIt becomes far more complicated when the same technologies are used in war.\n\nI've long argued that _human-centred AI isn't a slogan – it's a choice_. So if artificial intelligence is meant to serve humanity, what does that promise mean when the same technology helps plan and conduct conflict?\n\nPerhaps that is where the real test of human-centred AI begins.",
  "title": "When human-centred AI meets the realities of war",
  "updatedAt": "2026-03-06T07:22:23.329Z"
}