The overarching question imparting urgency to this exploration is: Can U.S.-Russian contention in cyberspace cause the two nuclear superpowers to stumble into war? In considering this question we were constantly reminded of recent comments by a prominent U.S. arms control expert: At least as dangerous as the risk of an actual cyberattack, he observed, is cyber operations’ “blurring of the line between peace and war.” Or, as Nye wrote, “in the cyber realm, the difference between a weapon and a non-weapon may come down to a single line of code, or simply the intent of a computer program’s user.”
Biography
Diletta Milana is a second-year Master’s candidate in Public Administration at Harvard Kennedy School of Government. She works as a Research Assistant at the Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, where she leads research initiatives on autonomous systems and decision-making. Her interests also encompass democratic participation, emerging technology policy, and regulation.
Originally from Piacenza, Italy, Diletta holds an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business and an MSc in Computer Science and Engineering from Politecnico di Milano. Prior to joining Harvard, she built her professional career through roles as a visiting researcher in deep learning for neuroimaging at the Technical University of Munich, a Data Scientist and Open Innovation Lead at Eni, and a Machine Learning Product Manager at Apple. Diletta was a youth delegate to the G7 in Hiroshima in 2023, where she lead the Digital Transformation and Innovation track. In 2017, Diletta co-founded Yezers, a non-profit organization dedicated to empowering democratic participation by bridging the gap between the younger generation and decision-makers.
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