Bryan Wells (Grantham, United Kingdom, 1959) is “the main scientific adviser†–according to his own words– to the NATO leaders. He chairs the science and technology council of the 31 members of the Atlantic Alliance and its “like countries”, the largest military bloc on the globe, previously thinking of the Soviet Union and today dealing with Russia or China. And the network, “of some 5,000 scientists from around the world,” he continues, faces new uncertainties in security and defense hand in hand with technology. With a firm but serene gesture and voice, he spoke to La Vanguardia on his recent visit to Madrid to attend a conference on NATO’s technological future at IE University.
One of your main functions is to advise NATO officials in their decision-making. What has been your most repeated piece of advice lately?
This year we published the report on trends in science and technology 2023-2043. In the first volume we discovered that it is often the combinations of technologies that make the real difference. If we think about artificial intelligence, for example, we need big data to train it. The second volume examines each of the emerging technologies and their situation in 20 years. But what we’ve also done is developed an AI-powered search engine that can search the internet for millions of open source academic journals and find in them what we call weak signals: research papers on a new topic that may turn out to be the next generation emerging disruptive technologies.
Is there a new technology that is growing and poses a threat little known to the public?
synthetic biology. In the report we say that it will be the next great scientific revolution. Many people are aware of the potential of personalized medicines, but synthetic biology will eventually make it possible to make sensors that the military can wear on clothes, produce energy, or find new materials that are not found in nature. This represents a huge opportunity for civil society as well. But with opportunities come threats and we need to be vigilant about the fact that synthetic biology could be used to tailor chemicals against our civil society. We must be alert.
If we talk about technological disruptions, do they break the international balance of power as did, for example, the development of the nuclear bomb in its day?
Yes, and that is why it is so important that NATO maintain its technical advantage. Other countries are making progress. No doubt. But for me, one of the most important factors that helps NATO maintain its advantage is the strength of our academic base. In the ranking of Shanghai universities, 19 of the 20 best are on the soil of NATO allies, and the twentieth is from Switzerland.
How many scientific-technological security breaches do we suffer per day in the NATO or European zone? Is it worse now than before the Ukrainian war or not?
As you understand, I will not go into details, although we take it very seriously, because we are constantly at risk from various actors.
Artificial intelligence, so in vogue today, is it a threat?
In all technologies there are opportunities, but also risks. There is no doubt that artificial intelligence is allowing our managers to be informed with increasing amounts of data when making their decisions. Some are of a size that the human mind could not even process in the necessary time frames. Artificial intelligence can also help design the next generation of military capabilities, for example pharmaceuticals. The opportunities are enormous. Although with each advance our strategic competitors can study how to use them against us.
Many fear that China is ahead of the West in artificial intelligence and other scientific-technological innovations. Is it so?
China is making significant advances in a wide range of technologies. The Science of Technology Trends 2023 report includes open information about your facilities and institutions in areas of interest to NATO. It is information that does not reveal anything that cannot be found on the internet, but its scale is already significant. Last year’s Madrid Strategic Concept singled out China as NATO’s strategic competitor. Consequently, we have to maintain that technical advantage.
Is Europe falling behind the US and China?
If that were true, I would wonder why so many American scientists are part of the NATO Science and Technology Organization. The truth is that, working together, we can benefit from each other’s experience. All scientists, having received slightly different training, will bring different perspectives on the same problem. It is not a matter of competition between the US and the European states or the EU. We work together. And there is no doubt that European nations also benefit from the US experience. It is not a zero-sum game.
What is the main security challenge for NATO today?
We are witnessing a revolution in science and technology on many fronts and NATO needs to address them to maintain its technical advantage, hence the Strategic Concept agreed in Madrid in 2022. It is a great challenge, not only because of the rapid pace of change but also because you have to look at the physical and social sciences and because if defense was the main engine of scientific change 50 years ago, now you only need to look at the scale of investments by Google and Tesla to recognize that the private sector is driving it increasingly; It means that you have to watch what they do to add that little element that makes their advances applicable to defense.
For example?
If we take pharmaceuticals as an example, big companies of course invest a huge amount of money in curing diseases we see in society, but in defense we may need some additional cures, called ‘medical countermeasures’. ‘. And then there is the appearance of what NATO calls ’emerging and disruptive technologies’, such as artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, space, communications, etc. The Madrid Strategic Concept establishes maintaining NATO’s technical vanguard in the face of almost equal competition.
Is uncertainty already common ground for everyone in the world?
Uncertainty has always been there and the role of NATO scientists is to try to anticipate to our leaders what the upcoming changes could be. That is why we work with a 20-year perspective. And we will also live in uncertainty because our society is increasingly dependent on technology. But the role of scientists is to try to reduce that uncertainty as much as possible; being able to have the choice to use technologies in ways of our own choosing.
