Together with the UN missions of Austria, Mexico, and Indonesia, PRIF hosted an ACONA side event at UN headquarters in New York on May 6 as part of the NPT Review Conference. The panel discussion “Beyond ‘Human in the Loop’” addressed how AI developments intersect with existing Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) commitments and what policy proposals are now needed to reduce emerging risks. PRIF Researchers Sascha Hach, ACONA Managing Director, and Timothée Hillier-Davis planned and co-organized the event.
Since AI-nuclear discussions are still focused on AI and NC3 systems, the technology’s potential for disarmament verification is overlooked. The event therefore aimed to foster a shared understanding of AI-related nuclear risks, to provide an overview of the potential benefits of AI applications relevant to both nuclear-weapon states and non-nuclear-weapon states and to examine how AI developments intersect with, and may affect, existing NPT commitments.
The panel featured Alice Saltini (ACONA Fellow '26 & Senior Research Lead, RISD), Vladislav Chernavskikh (Researcher, Weapons of Mass Destructions Programme, SIPRI), Alonso Martínez Ruiz (Advisor on Disarmament Affairs, Permanent Representation of Mexico to the UN) and Mallory Stewart (Chief Executive Officer, Council on Strategic Risks). They discussed implications of the UN General Assembly Resolution 80/23 and weighed risks and opportunities of the AI-nuclear nexus for the NPT’s disarmament pillar. As Saltini emphasized, AI should not be viewed merely as a risk multiplier: by speeding up decision-making and potentially increasing reliance on nuclear weapons, it could undermine disarmament – but it could also support it through advances in verification and monitoring.
Regarding options for state parties to strengthen the NPT review process, the participants assessed paths for enhanced cooperation and identified practical and constructive ways to engage with issues within the NPT framework. In a first step, the AI-nuclear discussion must therefore be firmly anchored in the realm of disarmament, without neglecting the opportunities for verification, confidence-building, and transparency.
The Arms Control Negotiation Academy ACONA is an international consortium led by Höfði Reykjavík Peace Centre at the University of Iceland, in collaboration with the Woodrow Wilson Center's History and Public Policy Program, Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF), the Project on Managing the Atom (MTA) at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard Kennedy School, the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS), and the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University. At PRIF, the project is led by Christopher Daase and Sascha Hach.