Dr Rupert Barrett Taylor
AI, ethics, and the changing nature of war.
About
I'm a Defence and National Security Research Fellow at The Alan Turing Institute, where I lead the Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance workstream within the AI for Data-Driven Advantage research team.My work examines what happens to command, targeting, and intelligence production as war becomes mediated by algorithms and what that means for military identity, accountability, and the capability of our armed forces.I have over twenty years' experience across defence and security, spanning academia, government, and industry including an engineer working in the defence industry, operational deployment as a civilian, and open-source analysis in the private sector.My research sits deliberately at an intersection of AI as a capability question and AI ethics as question of governance.I hold a PhD in International Relations (University of Sussex), an MA in War Studies (King's College London), and a BEng (Hons) in Aerospace Engineering (University of Hertfordshire).
Reports
Resilient Defence AI: Sustainable and Operationally Effective Capabilities by Design (with A. Knack & N. Karner). The Alan Turing Institute / AIDA, commissioned by the MOD's Defence AI Centre, 2026. linkIntegrating Artificial Intelligence into Battlefield Command Decision-making ("AI Won't Replace the General," with N. Karner). The Alan Turing Institute, 2025. linkDefence AI Assurance: identifying promising practice and a system card template for Defence (with A. Knack & L. Fletcher). The Alan Turing Institute, 2025. linkComplex Social Behaviour Through the Lens of AI: Notes on the Future of Decision Support (with A. Knack & N. Karner). The Alan Turing Institute, 2025. linkA Digitized, Efficient Model of War (with G. Wilde). Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2025. link
Publications
The Reductive Nature of Military Targeting. Digital War, 2025. linkA Relational Approach to Human-AI Trust Building. In STO-MP-HFM-377, NATO Science and Technology Organization, 2024. linkThe Limits of Digital Representations of the Battlefield. CETaS Expert Analysis, The Alan Turing Institute, 2024. link
Talks
How Artificial Intelligence and Automation Are Making the State and War Incidental to Warfare. DILEMA Lecture Series, Asser Institute, November 2024. linkIn conversation with Dr Rupert Barrett-Taylor, The Historian's Stammtisch, October 2025 link