Description
This article examines how Artificial Intelligence (AI) is imagined and narrated in relation to terrorism and counter-terrorism through two policy reports published by the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Centre (UNCCT) and the UN Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI). Drawing on the concept of sociotechnical imaginaries and bridging Science and Technology Studies (STS) with Critical Security and Terrorism Studies (CSS/CTS), the article unpacks how AI, terrorism, and counter-terrorism are discursively co-constructed. It argues that the reports contribute to the construction of a specific sociotechnical imaginary: one in which AI is framed as inevitable and transformative, terrorism as increasingly technological, and AI-enabled counter-terrorism as both necessary and morally imperative. Through this imaginary, speculative futures and imminent threats are mobilised to legitimise pre-emptive and potentially exceptional responses. By invoking scientific authority, expert consensus, and the language of technical neutrality, these UN organs perform as a technocratic authority, presenting its guidance as apolitical while reinforcing a particular vision of global security governance. The article contributes to existing literature by illustrating how sociotechnical imaginaries of AI are produced and circulated in international security discourse, and by highlighting their political effects – particularly the depoliticisation of security and technological choices and the normalisation of anticipatory counter-terrorism.
