Towards an International Political Economy of Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the latest General-Purpose Technology, inducing disruption to processes of economic and social production. This collection focuses attention on AI induced disruption to social production processes including contributions that note such in the Global South and the BRICs—Brazil, Russia, India, and China. Scrutiny of social production is long a part of political economy studies, being traced to the tradition of economic interpretation of history and society. Contemporary international political economy is partly built on the economic interpretation of history tradition affording sufficient analytical depth and breadth for this collection. A working definition of AI is provided before an overview of contributions to this collection.

Speech assistants with a female voice are already part of our everyday life. Simultaneously, women continue to be under-represented in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics), a situation that does not seem to be changing substantially. Meanwhile, new human-like robots are increasingly being equipped with female characteristics, and the global entertainment industry expects a new generation of female sex robots to thrive. With these developments in mind, the chapter asks to what extent the role of women and contemporary technology are connected, and where this relationship is heading in the imminent future. One focus is on the latest technologies equipped with Artificial Intelligence systems that, if we trust some scientists, may change the future fundamentally toward a general feminization of avant-garde technology. The authors consult various feminist theories with the aim of analyzing and understanding these developments as well as stimulating discussion about the issue of transcultural feminization at the human-technology interface.

Intelligence augmentation (IA) will be one of the most impactful technological developments of the coming decades, particularly given its coupling with the Internet of Things (IoT). In the wake of vast increases in data streams and computing power, an Internet of Things Intelligence Augmentation (IoTIA) will fundamentally transform economic, social, and political life. So-called centaur relationships of smart, networked machines working in tandem with human agents will become pervasive, prolific, and predominant. But for billions of humans, the IoTIA may represent an amputation rather than an amplification of intelligence. A crisis of cognitive deskilling is in store. Cultivating the human capacities for creativity and practical judgment is crucial to a promising future in an IoTIA world.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is discussed quite often in the context of workplace automation, self-driving cars, or lethal autonomous weapons. Less frequent in discussions of artificial intelligence—both in how AI systems are presently in use, and how they may be deployed in the future—is mention of AI’s impact in the civilian public sphere. This is particularly true with respect to how AI is impacting, and will impact, public education systems around the world. In this chapter, we examine current uses of AI in public education in the United States, China, and India. We discuss government plans to expand those uses in the future. The Indian government is ahead of those in both China and the United States in articulating a vision for how AI can be used to reshape public education for the better. And we finally analyze these uses in the context of such considerations as school demographics, fairness, civil liberties and differing cultural views of privacy, and broader AI surveillance.

Based on Neo-Gramscian perspectives, this chapter examines the strategies of Chinese and U.S. multinational corporations to expand AI and the cloud to Latin America. The main argument is that the spread of these digital technologies will not necessarily usher a new era of abundance nor generate a new condition of dependence, but rather accentuate problematic processes of uneven and combined development in the region. This is a consequence of the ongoing war of positions between Chinese and U.S. multinational corporations to spread and govern AI and the cloud in the region, which so far is targeted to the most resourceful actors. Finally, the chapter outlines the implications of the strategies employed by states and civil society organizations in Latin America to relate with these corporate strategies.

In contemporary societies, surveillance has become omnipresent with the integration of AI systems. As knowledge intensifies on AI’s position and role in surveillance, this chapter evaluates some of the risks identified by previous scholars in regard to AI-enabled surveillance for public safety and their social impacts. It privileges social constructivism as its theoretical framework to describe AI as a socio-technical system that dynamically redefines social structures through surveillance. It conceptualizes the role of AI in surveillance through a philosophical perspective that integrates knowledge from other fields of study. The first section focuses on the implementation of AI in video and digital surveillance and its relation with public safety. The important role of governments and corporations is integrated in the conceptualization of the development and execution of surveillance in the society. The second section discusses four risks associated with the application of AI in surveillance which are biases in algorithms, the arbitrary factors in surveillance, the lack of transparency in disproportionated collection of data and the negative psychological and social impacts. These risks are all interconnected which results in a complex dynamic of challenges related to AI application. It concludes with an integrated analysis that describes the process of alteration empowered by AI tools in surveillance to explain the risks for contemporary societies.

This chapter explores novel research conducted by scholars in artificial intelligence (AI) , peace studies, and political science who are collaborating to build sophisticated AI systems to help identify emergent real-time trends on social media which may be contemporaneous with eruptions of extreme violence or mass atrocities. Of key interest in our research is the phenomenon of memes, that may be deployed by nefarious actors with the intention of sparking eruptions of violence amidst pre-existing hostilities. This new research collaboration is also developing novel abilities in semantic forensics—the ability to parse complicated and layered meanings—within a constellation of traditional and social media sets. This chapter summarizes the current state of our research, including: (a) the technological challenges faced in the development of robust semantic analysis systems; (b) novel technologies for identifying deepfake media items; and (c) the complex ethical questions surrounding who should be granted access to this technology.

As artificial intelligence (AI) advances, speculations on its implications run parallel, sometimes rampant. On one side, alarmists foresee a technological singularity as AI outstrips human intelligence. On the other, scholars and analysts tend to trail behind the staggering speed of development. Called cultural lag, the deliberate pace of theoretical reflection is out of sync. Steering between the Scylla of doomsday scripts and the Charybdis of cultural lag, we identify and discuss the threat of violent nonstate actors exploiting advanced and democratized AI technologies to commit attacks. We analyze three confirming case studies followed by three potential threats becoming available as AI evolves: self-driving cars, Internet bots, and 3D printing. Our chapter contributes a shrewd approach to threat analysis in the dynamic world of AI development.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming the world and having a profound impact on the economy, government, and society. Thus, many countries have proposed AI strategic policies in order to lead the development of AI in their societies during the twenty-first century. Although the idea of AI emerged in the 1950s, it entered a crucial stage in the last decade and now has an extensive range of applications with significant societal implications. Therefore, governments around the world need to be aware of the opportunities and challenges associated with AI. This chapter is focused on the emerging field of AI policymaking. It presents the first countries that have launched AI strategies and compares current AI policy developments. The research questions are as follows: What are the similarities and differences between various national AI strategies? What are the priorities of AI strategies? How much do governments spend on AI strategies? After having analyzed six national AI strategies, it was found that each strategy is unique to the context of the country; each has different priorities as well as different budgets. Finally, as AI is already a part of our daily lives, some recommendations are offered to policymakers in order to help them to adapt to these technological changes and develop effective AI policies.

The emerging potential of Artificial intelligence has shown its fruit in the economic sector. Henceforth, states are now inclined to replicate the similar patterns into the defence sector. Today, AI is dubbed as the third revolution in military affairs after gun powder and nuclear weapons respectively. As of now USA and China are leading the AI race with respect to militarization. This has eventually triggered an arms race between both of the states. Moreover, the scope of this race is not limited between USA and China only, states such as Russia and India have also jumped in and are pursuing autonomous weapons. The chapter will discuss the different triggers, dynamics and development of the militarization of the AI by USA, China and Russia and India. In addition, it will also include the repercussions of this development both are regional and international level.

Security is a broad term that has a myriad of contexts both for the industry and the government. In the context of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), they encompass areas of cyber-security, information security, economic and financial security, defense security, intelligence, homeland security, diplomacy, and development. These innumerable areas thus force the security community to look at the possible vulnerabilities and the security gaps that exist in this evolving technology. While the major fear revolves around AI exceeding human intelligence and escapes human control, possible replacement of humans in every area of society, and in government monitoring, understanding, and controlling citizens, the key challenge that stands out is to understand the influence AI has on various facets of security. Agarwala and Chaudhary through this chapter provide clarity on the current security trends and applications of AI both in the industry and the government. In doing so, they explain how AI may possibly aggravate the security dilemma for the world and what needs to be done to ensure international peace and order.