“AI Lawfare and National Security,” Margaret Hu, William & Mary Law School

DeepSeek's introduction in January 2025 has been referenced as an AI Sputnick moment. AI Lawfare describes how, in the AI Cool War, AI law and policy priorities are blended with the aims of private-public Digital Empires in geopolitical battlefields, where cognitive and ideological conflicts are waged in the global AI economy and in information ecosystems. Increasingly, AI governance is an important component of National Security strategies. In information warfare, bulk data — webscraped, purchased or hacked — can be weaponized through AI. Critical Infrastructure governance, as designated by the U.S. government, currently does not include practices for safeguarding personal or sensitive data. This gap in the national security strategy, exposes the country, its infrastructure and people to AI-powered attacks. This talk will explore how a failure to grapple with AI Lawfare's role in digital infrastructure, data privacy and security, and AI governance, will lead to National Security blind spots in the age of AI.

Margaret Hu is the Taylor Reveley Research Professor and Professor of Law, and Director of the Digital Democracy Lab, at William & Mary (W&M) Law School. She is a Faculty Affiliate with the Global Research Institute and Data Science at W&M, and a Research Affiliate with Pennsylvania State University’s Institute for Computational and Data Sciences. Her research focuses on the intersection of civil rights, national security, cybersurveillance, and AI.