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As the war involving Israel, Iran, and the United States expands, technology is becoming more and more embedded in decision-making processes and the battlespace of war itself. AI-assisted targeting, drone warfare, AI-generated media outputs, cloud infrastructure, and platform governance are reshaping how war is fought, narrated, and monetized across the Middle East.

This webinar, the fourth in ARI's Siyasa & Silicon series, builds on earlier conversations that discussed AI-assisted targeting, disinformation and digital manipulation, and the politics of digital infrastructure. It examines what the current conflict reveals and confirms about the changing relationship between technology, state power, and accountability in the region. Moving beyond narrow debates about “AI in war,” the discussion will explore how digital systems are transforming not only military operations, but also narratives about the war, civilian protection, regional dependency, and the political economy of conflict.

Bringing together legal, technical, and policy perspectives, the webinar will ask:

• How have AI-assisted systems changed the conduct of warfare and how do they complicate responsibility for civilian harm?
• How are platforms, disinformation, and synthetic media (AI-generated images, stories etc) shaping what publics can know and trust during wartime?
• And what does digital sovereignty mean when the infrastructures of targeting, verification, and communication are increasingly controlled by foreign states and corporations?
• In opaque contexts of defense contracts and classified national security, what avenues are there for accountability?

At a moment when war is being fought as much through data, platforms, and infrastructure as through missiles and troops, this conversation asks what kind of technological order is emerging in the Middle East, and at whose expense.

Moderator - Andrew Findell-Aghnatios

Speakers:

• Nabih Bulos - Middle East bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times
• Jessica Dorsey - Assistant Professor of International Law, Utrecht University School of Law
• Bassant Hassib - Assistant Professor of Political Science in the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)

This discussion forms part of ARI's "Siyasa & Silicon" series, which seeks to advance social-science engagement with artificial intelligence and emerging technologies across the Middle East and North Africa region, fostering critical inquiry into how digital transformation is influencing governance, accountability, and civic life.