Foreign Policy and Artificial Intelligence (AI)

The workshop „Foreign Policy and Artificial Intelligence (AI)“, which was held in June, was a hybrid event with 25 on-site participants and 25 people entering via the Zoom link. The objective was to ensure that foreign policy professionals are able to recognise and comprehend the ramifications of AI and learn to actively leverage it in foreign affairs. The Data Lab and the Alumni Team hosted the workshop at the Gov Tech Campus as a daytime event with multiple inputs by different speakers. The participants were given an introduction by Hans-Christian Mangelsdorf, the Chief Data Scientist of the FFO, which centred on potential opportunities and challenges of AI. The main goal of the workshop was for participants to grasp the complexity of AI and to establish a knowledge-sharing network of professionals to deliver ethical and effective solutions. Gunda Ehmke, advisor at the German FFO Data Innovation Lab, addressed the question of the „AI Revolution: Is Foreign Policy prepared for the future?“ She was followed by Philip Oedi, who provided technical insights and assessed the long-term substance of generative AI after its recent hype. German cases of AI use in foreign policy were presented by Raphael Leuner. After this came the breakout sessions, where participants had the chance to talk about experiences with AI in connection with foreign policy in their home countries.

Alumni Team