Description
Artificial Intelligence (AI) constitutes the most significant sea change in strategic affairs since the dawn of the atomic age. While the advent of nuclear weapons was highly disruptive, AI is truly revolutionary because of the introduction of non-human cognition to strategy and war for the fist time in human history. While the nascent international relations subfield of security studies largely coalesced around the vexing issues introduced by nuclear weapons, the literature on AI’s potential effects on international politics remains embryotic.
AI is qualitatively different from military-technical innovations of the past because of its status as a general-purpose technology which has catalyzed a fourth industrial revolution. While AI portends a revolution in the character of war – shaped throughout history by changes in technology, culture, and social organization – the nature of war – which is an interactive, violent, and inherently political contest of wills – will endure. The advantages conveyed by even marginally superior AI algorithms will lead to intense security competition, leading to widespread proliferation and increasing the probability of inadvertent conflict and escalation.
AI, which has the potential to address humanity’s most vexing issues - including disease, resource scarcity, and climate change - concurrently threatens to accelerate the security dilemma and conflict to machine speed. The landscape of international politics in the twenty-first century will be characterized by profound uncertainty and numerous existential threats. What is need is a new politics of survival to inform global governance and the grand strategies of states.
