Before It Escalates: AI, Digital Signals, and Collective Choices for Peace

Most conflicts are not missed because there is no data, but because signals are present yet not correctly interpreted. This workshop, developed by AURORA International Study Center, explores how early signals of tension are detected, shared, and translated into action before conflict becomes visible, at the intersection of artificial intelligence ethics, neuroscience, and cognitive science. 

Artificial intelligence is examined not as a solution, but as a dual-use tool that can both enhance and distort decision-making by amplifying patterns, accelerating judgments, or reinforcing cognitive blind spots. Within this framework, the workshop focuses on the ethical implications of AI in early warning systems, where responsibility, transparency, and interpretive bias are inseparable from data processing and decision-making. Participants engage in a simulated scenario of evolving social and political tension, working with partial and conflicting digital signals to assess risk and propose preventive responses. 

The exercise highlights the uncertainty of interpretation, questioning situations in which AI produces apparent clarity in the absence of certainty, and exploring the risks of over-reliance and misinterpretation. A distinctive feature of the workshop is its deliberately intergenerational design, bringing together senior experts and emerging researchers in a shared analytical space. 

This reflects AURORA's commitment to knowledge as a multi-generational and collective process, where different perspectives contribute to the interpretation of complex signals and decision-making. The co-organization with Domus Communis Foundation (DCF) strengthens the integration between analytical frameworks and community-based approaches to peacebuilding, with a focus on civic dialogue, social cohesion, and participatory processes across local and transnational contexts.

Join online

You can join this workshop online here.(link available soon).