PEACE TALKS #2: Autonomous Weapons, AI, and the Future of Human Control

🕊️ The Second Edition: 5 November | UN City Copenhagen

🇺🇳 The UN City Peace Talks explore some of the forces shaping peace and conflict today, and what those changes mean for international cooperation and its role in responding to them.

The first edition, held in June 2026, took the Global Peace Index as its starting point and examined a world in which conflicts are becoming more internationalised and traditional approaches to preventing and resolving them are under growing pressure.

💬 This second edition turns to one of the developments shaping the landscape already now and likely in the years ahead: the growing role of Artificial Intelligence and autonomous technologies in warfare.

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Artificial Intelligence presents both promise and peril. AI is changing what is possible in warfare. The harder question is what we decide should be possible.

Applied responsibly, new technologies may improve situational awareness, precision, and the protection of civilians and military personnel. Military systems can already identify objects, process information, and support decisions at speeds no human can match.

At the same time, increasing autonomy in weapons systems raises fundamental questions about human judgment and control over the use of force:

Who remains accountable for decisions made or mediated by machines?

How much and what kinds of human control are enough?

Can international rules develop quickly enough to keep pace with the speed of conflict and how wars are fought?

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On 5 November, UN City Copenhagen and the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS) invite you to the next edition of Peace Talks for a conversation going beyond the technology itself.

We will explore where the technology currently stands, what increasing autonomy could mean for warfare dynamics, how existing international law applies, where international efforts to establish additional rules have reached, and what are the most difficult unresolved questions.

Bringing together perspectives from the United Nations, the Danish Government, academia, defence technology, and international humanitarian law, our discussion will ask a central question:

How do we preserve meaningful human responsibility for the use of force, and what role can international cooperation play in establishing the rules that govern it?

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PROGRAMME

16:30 Welcome – Reflections on peace, technological change, and the role of multilateral cooperation

Jorge Moreira da Silva – UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UNOPS

16:37 Keynote Address – Danish perspective on defence, AI, and responsible technological development

Speaker to be announced

16:45 Setting the Scene: Autonomous weapons and the state of play

Ingvild Bode – Professor of International Relations and Director of the Center for War Studies, University of Southern Denmark

17:05 Discussion and Q&A

• Ingvild Bode
• Jeppe Teglskov Jacobsen – Strategic Advisor and Chief of Information, The National Defence Technology Centre
• Iben Yde – Advisor, Rethink Advisory; Former Head of Center for Operational and International Law at The Royal Danish Defence Academy

17:40 Closing Remarks

18:00 End