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Ministry of Defence: Artificial Intelligence

Asked by Ben Obese-JectyConservativeMinistry of DefenceTabled Answered 4 September 2025UIN 72334

The question

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what are his Department’s ethical principles for developing and deploying AI.

Answered by Maria Eagle

The SDR recognised the transformative potential of AI and set out MOD's commitment to accelerate the adoption of AI-enabled capabilities across warfighting domains. All development and use of AI across Defence must align with MOD's AI Ethics Principles, published in 2022 in the Ambitious, Safe Responsible policy.

The five principles are: human centricity, responsibility, understanding, bias and harm mitigation, and reliability. Joint Services Publication 936 on Dependable AI defines the governance and assurance processes necessary to apply these principles as part of a proportionate, risk managed approach.

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