AI is supercharging war. Could it also help broker peace?

Entrepreneur Shawn Guttman's Quest for Peace

Can we measure what is in our hearts and minds, and could it help us end wars any sooner? These are the questions that consume entrepreneur Shawn Guttman, a Canadian émigré who recently gave up his yearslong teaching position in Israel to accelerate a path to peace—using an algorithm.

Living some 75 miles north of Tel Aviv, Guttman is no stranger to the uncertainties of conflict. Over the past few months, miscalculated drone strikes and imprecise missile targets—some intended for larger cities—have occasionally landed dangerously close to his town, sending him to bomb shelters more than once.

When something big happens, we can point to it and say, ‘Right, that happened because five years ago we did A, B, and C, and look at its effect,’” he says over Google Meet from his office, following a recent trip to the shelter. Behind him, souvenirs from the 1979 Egypt-Israel and 1994 Israel-Jordan peace treaties are visible. “I’m tired of that perspective.”

Didi: A Different Approach to Peace

The startup Guttman co-founded, Didi, is taking a different approach. Its aim is to analyze data across news outlets, political discourse, and social media to identify opportune moments to broker peace. Inspired by political scientist I. William Zartman’s “ripeness” theory, the algorithm—called the Ripeness Index—is designed to tell negotiators, organizers, diplomats, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) exactly when conditions are “ripe” to initiate peace negotiations, build coalitions, or launch grassroots campaigns.

During ongoing U.S.-led negotiations over the war in Gaza, both Israel and Hamas have entrenched themselves in opposing bargaining positions. Meanwhile, Israel’s traditional allies, including the U.S., have expressed growing frustration over the war and the dire humanitarian conditions in the enclave, where the threat of famine looms.

In Israel, Didi’s data is already informing grassroots organizations as they strategize which media outlets to target and how to time public actions, such as protests, in coordination with coalition partners. Guttman and his collaborators hope that eventually negotiators will use the model’s insights to help broker lasting peace.

PeaceTech Movement

Guttman’s project is part of a rising wave of so-called PeaceTech—a movement using technology to make negotiations more inclusive and data-driven. This includes AI from Hala Systems, which uses satellite imagery and data fusion to monitor ceasefires in Yemen and Ukraine. Another AI startup, Remesh, has been active across the Middle East, helping organizations of all sizes canvas key stakeholders.

A range of NGOs and academic researchers have also developed digital tools for peacebuilding. The nonprofit Computational Democracy Project created Pol.is, an open-source platform that enables citizens to crowdsource outcomes to public debates. Meanwhile, the Futures Lab at the Center for Strategic and International Studies built a peace agreement simulator, complete with a chart to track how well each stakeholder’s needs are met.

The Ripeness Index

Every evening, Didi’s bots scrape the websites of 60 Israeli and 30 Palestinian media outlets, digesting keywords into its Ripeness Index model. The index, a colorful radar chart resembling a digital version of the vintage puzzle game Simon, aims to distill the complex dynamics of Israeli-Palestinian social unrest into simple categories. These categories indicate when the time may be right to push for peace through grassroots messaging and diplomatic activity.

If the center of the index is red, it signals that conditions are not yet ripe for negotiations. In such cases, messaging efforts should focus on shifting the surrounding red sections of the model to yellow. Yellow indicates that both sides are beginning to recognize that the costs of continuing the conflict outweigh the benefits.

In early May, Guttman and his cofounder, Keren Winter-Dinur, a doctoral student in conflict resolution, worked with a team of developers to put the system through its biggest test to date at the annual People’s Peace Summit in Jerusalem.

Challenges and Opportunities

Despite the potential of PeaceTech, challenges remain. The ethical and privacy concerns of using AI to interpret public sentiment, along with financial hurdles, need to be addressed. As defense spending surges globally, resources for peacebuilding initiatives are being diverted. However, entrepreneurs like Guttman remain undeterred in their pursuit of leveraging technology for peace.