New Technologies and Deterrence: Artificial Intelligence and Adversarial Behaviour

Abstract

AbstractOffering a critical synthesis of extant insights into technological developments in AI and their potential ramifications for international relations and deterrence postures, this chapter argues that AI risks influencing military deterrence and coercion in unique ways: it may alter cost-benefit calculations by removing the fog of war, by superficially imposing rationality on political decisions, and by diminishing the human cost of military engagement. It may recalibrate the balance between offensive and defensive measures, tipping the scales in favour of pre-emption, and undermine existing assumptions imbedded in both conventional and nuclear deterrence. AI might altogether remove human emotions and eliminate other biological limitations from the practice of coercion. It may provide users the ability to collect, synthesize, and act upon real-time intelligence from several disparate sources, augmenting the certainty and severity of punishment strategies, both in theatre and online, compressing the distance between intelligence, political decisions, and coercive action. As a result, AI may quicken the overall pace of action across all domains of coercion, in conflict, crisis, and war, and within the related subfields of national security, counterterrorism, counter-crime, and counter-espionage.