The Double Black Box: National Security, Artificial Intelligence, and the Struggle for Democratic Accountability

Rapid advances in artificial intelligence are increasingly vital to national security operations.  The United States, China, and other states seek to harness these tools to bolster their own military and intelligence superiority. Yet their advent exacerbates an existing paradox within our democracy: some of the most consequential decisions made in the name of national security are often the least transparent and accountable – and the use of AI makes this problem worse.

In her new book, The Double Black Box, Ashley Deeks unpacks this pressing challenge. She examines how we can ensure democratic accountability, legality, and effectiveness in the use of artificial intelligence tools within national security processes, and which traditional and nontraditional checks on the executive branch might be brought to bear on the use of national security AI.

Harvard Law School Professor Kristen Eichensehr holds a conversation with Deeks about the book, unpacking its arguments and inviting the audience into the discussion.

Copies of Deeks' book will be sold at the event.

Speakers

Ashley Deeks

Ashley Deeks is Vice Dean of the University of Virginia School of Law, where she teaches and writes on international law, national security, intelligence, and the laws of war. From 2021 to 2022, she served as White House Associate Counsel and Deputy Legal Adviser to the National Security Council while on leave from UVA. Before joining academia, she spent nearly a decade in the U.S. State Department’s Office of the Legal Adviser, including as Assistant Legal Adviser for Political-Military Affairs and as Embassy Legal Adviser in Baghdad during Iraq’s constitutional negotiations.

Deeks’s research examines how governments navigate secrecy, executive power, and international legal constraints in the national security realm. She has written widely on the use of force, sanctions, secret treaties, and the intersection of domestic and international law. She is a member of the State Department’s Advisory Committee on International Law and the American Law Institute, a Faculty Senior Fellow at UVA’s Miller Center, and a contributing editor at Lawfare. Deeks received her J.D. with honors from the University of Chicago Law School and clerked for Judge Edward R. Becker on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

Kristen Eichensehr

Kristen Eichensehr is a Professor of Law at Harvard Law School whose research explores the intersections of foreign relations, national security, cybersecurity, and international law. Her recent scholarship addresses national security screening of investments, separation of powers in the national security state, attribution of state-sponsored cyberattacks, and how the Supreme Court’s major questions doctrine affects U.S. international agreements.

Eichensehr is a member of the U.S. State Department’s Advisory Committee on International Law and an adviser for the Restatement (Fourth) of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States. She also serves on the editorial boards of Just Security and the Journal of National Security Law & Policy. Her scholarship has been recognized with the Mike Lewis Prize for National Security Law and as one of the best corporate law articles of 2023 by Corporate Practice Commentator.

Before entering academia, Eichensehr clerked for Justices Sandra Day O’Connor and Sonia Sotomayor of the U.S. Supreme Court and for then-Judge Merrick B. Garland of the D.C. Circuit. She also served as Special Assistant to the Legal Adviser at the U.S. Department of State.

Sponsor

This event is generously supported by Orrick, Herrington, & Sutcliffe LLP through the Orrick Colloquium on CyberSecurity/CyberLaw at Harvard Law School.