The geopolitics of artificial intelligence
As artificial intelligence technologies become more powerful and deeply integrated in human systems, countries around the world are struggling to understand the benefits and risks they might pose to national security, prosperity and political stability.
These efforts are still very much a work in progress. Australia is developing a whole-of-government AI action plan, led by the Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources. The department released a discussion paper this year and finalised its call for submissions in November.
In line with the department’s brief, the paper concentrates on the economic potential of AI, while acknowledging the need for a human-centred, ‘responsible’ AI regime. That reflects a push internationally to conceptualise AI in terms of digital human security and human rights.
But AI technologies also have serious implications for national security and geopolitics, which need to be thoroughly explored in any discussion of what an AI framework for Australia might look like.
In any discussion of AI, it’s important to note that definitions of the technology are not settled and the applications are vast. But most definitions circle around the idea of machine learning, the ability of a digital technology not just to automate a function, but to learn from interactions with its environment and optimise a function accordingly.
The AI systems that we need to think about in national security terms include surveillance and profiling, the persuasive AI that pervades digital social networks, predictive algorithms and autonomous systems. It is also important to think about the control of the entire AI supply chain, from the human source of the datasets that AI technologies need to learn from, to research and development and technology transfers, and the effects of AI systems on societies.
But the AI geopolitical picture is now a contested tangle of state rivalry, multinational monopoly growth and public anxiety.
That AI is deeply embedded in the discourse of geopolitical competition is well established. The belief that AI will be the key to military, economic and ideological dominance has found voice in a proliferation of grand AI mission statements by the US, China, Russia and other players.
Whether an AI advantage will deliver pre-eminent power to any one nation is arguable. National control over AI technology still remains elusive in a world of globalised R&D collaboration and supply chains and transnational digital technology companies.
But the perception, at least, has driven intense national economic competition over establishment of global AI-powered monopolies in almost every sector—energy, infrastructure, health, online gaming, telecommunications, news, social media and entertainment—and the enormous data-harvesting power that goes with them.
Governments are also racing to develop AI military technologies like autonomous lethal weapons and swarming technology as well as the AI-enhanced surveillance, communications and data-exploitation capabilities they hope will give their military forces the decisional edge on the battlefield.
At the same time, countries are trying to unwind the globalisation of AI technology in order to control R&D collaboration and technology transfers. Individual nations and alliance systems are beginning to champion their own versions of AI norms and technology bases.
In the process, the huge datasets held by governments, corporations and various data brokers have become a strategic asset. They are coveted as the raw fuel needed to train machine-learning algorithms.
