Investigating the Kill Cloud: When Warfare Tests Tech on Civilians

Artificial intelligence is being tested in conflict zones and is then rolled out on civilians elsewhere. Launched in Berlin in 2023, Disruption Network Institute (disruption.institute) is a research hub that brings together whistleblowers, artists, activists and investigative journalists to study how global connectivity fuels warfare, or what whistleblowers Lisa Ling and Cian Westmoreland call "The Kill Cloud" (2021). 

Disruption Network Institute draws on testimony from people who have seen these systems operate: Tatiana Bazzichelli, researcher and director of the DNI, introduces the group's work. Scholar and artist Tiara Roxanne, one of this year’s DNI Fellows, presents her artistic research on how the Kill Cloud affects ‘undocumented migrants’ and Indigenous communities at the Mexico-US border, along with the environmental costs of drone-based surveillance. Together, they reflect on the impact of AI both within and outside declared war zones, and why borders become laboratories for control technology. This panel aims to open a discussion on how military tech development affects everyone.