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2023 | Book

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Artificial Intelligence and International Relations Theories

Authors: Bhaso Ndzendze, Tshilidzi Marwala

Publisher: Springer Nature Singapore

Part of: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

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About this book

This book discusses the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on international relations theories. As a phenomenon, AI is everywhere in the real world and growing. Through its transformative nature, it is simultaneously simplifying and complicating processes. Importantly, it also overlooks and “misunderstands”. Globally, leaders, diplomats and policymakers have had to familiarise themselves and grapple with concepts such as algorithms, automation, machine learning, and neural networks. These and other features of modern AI are redefining our world, and with it, the long-held assumptions scholars of IR have relied on for their theoretical accounts of our universe.

The book takes a historic, contemporary and long-term approach to explain and anticipate AI’s impact on IR – and vice versa – through a systematic treatment of 9 theoretical paradigms and schools of thought including realism, liberalism, feminism, postcolonial theory and green theory. This book draws on original datasets, innovative empirical case studies and in-depth engagement with the core claims of the traditional and critical theoretical lenses to reignite debates on the nature and patterns of power, ethics, conflict, and systems among states and non-state actors.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter
Chapter 1. Introduction
Abstract
If there is anything that can be agreed upon, and there are few even among specialists, it is that artificial intelligence (AI) is a complex phenomenon, rendered all the more so by its integration into complex human institutions and modes of interaction. There is perhaps no more complicated and layered an interaction as international relations (IR).
Bhaso Ndzendze, Tshilidzi Marwala
Chapter 2. Theory in International Relations
Abstract
Scholars of IR frame the mainstay of their discussions in theoretical terms. They generate and test theoretical accounts of their universe; a world of states and non-state actors interacting with each other in one form or another. The theories differ in their basic assumptions of what exists, what should be analysed and the conclusions they reach about the world.
Bhaso Ndzendze, Tshilidzi Marwala
Chapter 3. Artificial Intelligence and International Relations
Abstract
For centuries now, the goal of creating machines as intelligent as humans has been an elusive one. But it has become possible and, for some, realised in recent decades due to the unprecedented digital platforms and computational power of our time.
Bhaso Ndzendze, Tshilidzi Marwala
Chapter 4. Realism and Artificial Intelligence
Abstract
The seventeenth-century English thinker Thomas Hobbes enjoys the rare legacy of being a key thinker in two distinct political traditions which are diametrically opposed. In addition, being one of the foundational thinkers of (domestic) liberalism (see Chapter 5 of this book), his work is integral to the germination of the paradigm of realism through his conceptualization of the notion of anarchy and advancement of the ideal of the strong state (or ‘leviathan’). Critical to his realism, however, were the adoption of notions of progress and ingenuity.
Bhaso Ndzendze, Tshilidzi Marwala
Chapter 5. Liberalism and Artificial Intelligence
Abstract
Though considerably more recent than realism, liberalism has a pedigree which stretches centuries and remains as relevant today as ever. Initially a set of descriptions of the ideal society, it has—in the post-Westphalian world—evolved into a complex explanation of world politics. In its wake and under the influence of liberal-leaning statesmen and stateswomen, lasting institutions and processes of global cooperation have been established. Moreover, unlike its rival paradigm of realism, liberalism is able to offer explanations of our modern world in which non-state actors are shaping global politics.
Bhaso Ndzendze, Tshilidzi Marwala
Chapter 6. Hegemonic Stability Theory and Artificial Intelligence
Abstract
China’s Sputnik moment—such is how Kai-Fu (Lee, AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley and the New World Order, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston, MA, 2018: 1) characterises the three-day showdown in 2017 between Ke Jie, China’s esteemed world champion in the ancient Chinese game of Go with Google’s AI-powered AlphaGo. In that set of games, the grandmaster lost all matches to the machine. Read at face value, the analogy by Lee, put forth in his book AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order, and variations of it by other scholars, nominally raises a great alarm. Such comparisons may conjure up scenarios of superpowers at loggerheads, with unmeasurable power in their possession.
Bhaso Ndzendze, Tshilidzi Marwala
Chapter 7. Dependency and Technology in the 4IR
Abstract
A growing body of literature, flanked by a litany of governmental policy documents the world over, notes the global economy to be entering the 4IR. The defining changes to be brought on by this revolution are not emerging in a historical void. Indeed, the present global economy is underlined by inequality among the countries of the world. In many ways, the first three industrial revolutions shaped today’s economic gaps among countries. Thus, technological readiness and capacity for innovation, which are tracked by the World Economic Forum (WEF) through a specialised index and are among the factors that arguably determine the retention and attraction of new FDI, could be important factors for new inflows.
Bhaso Ndzendze, Tshilidzi Marwala
Chapter 8. The English School and Artificial Intelligence
Abstract
The English School of IR is the first concerted attempt at theorising international relations processes outside the American mainstream, as represented by structural realism and liberalism. The School claims to present an account of international relations that is a combination of theory and history, as well as morality and power. Combining insights from both realism and liberalism, the school provides a basis for studying and understanding contemporary international relations and world history in terms of the “social structures of international orders”.
Bhaso Ndzendze, Tshilidzi Marwala
Chapter 9. Critical IR Theories and Artificial Intelligence: Constructivistm, Postcolonialism, Feminism, and Green Theory
Abstract
Among some of the most impactful emerging paradigms in IR are constructivism, postcolonial theory, feminism, and green theory. Whereas realism and liberalism have historical evolution on their side, these theories (termed critical theories) are advantaged by their ability to speak to the experiences and unique conditions which are the reality of states and peoples on the margins of power and influence in the IR world (indeed which are deliberately overlooked by the exclusive focus on states by realism and on international organisations, powerful corporations, and individuals by liberalism).
Bhaso Ndzendze, Tshilidzi Marwala
Chapter 10. Conclusion
Abstract
This conclusion assesses whether the field of IR is headed towards increased debate or, alternatively, typological theory-building with AI as a common factor. We anticipate more cross-theoretical debates as being more likely to be the case given the different sets of axioms each theory brings and thus the analytical methodology and foci they encompass; some on AI’s inequitable distribution and others on possible positive-sum game aspects, others on domestic determinants (and thus inside-out processes) over transnational ones (and thus outside-in ones), and still others on the anarchical components as opposed to emergent regulatory frameworks.
Bhaso Ndzendze, Tshilidzi Marwala
Backmatter
Metadata
Title
Artificial Intelligence and International Relations Theories
Authors
Bhaso Ndzendze
Tshilidzi Marwala
Copyright Year
2023
Publisher
Springer Nature Singapore
Electronic ISBN
978-981-19-4877-0
Print ISBN
978-981-19-4876-3
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-4877-0