The rapid maturing of artificial intelligence (AI) is accelerating global commercial competition across many dimensions and is radically altering the international security environment. Indeed, there is a growing belief among business leaders, senior military officers, defense officials, and political figures that AI will have a huge and potentially deterministic influence on the future of global politics and the balance of power. As Russian President Vladimir Putin famously claimed: “Artificial intelligence is the future not only for Russia, but for all humankind. Whoever becomes the leader in this sphere will become the ruler of the world.”
AI would not be the first technology to have transformative effects across society, a wide range of industries, and international affairs. Electricity and semiconductors—two prominent examples—each served to increase economic productivity, drive forward scientific progress in complementary fields, and transform military power. Whilst we must guard against turning technology into the “master variable” that explains the course of all human history, it is fair to say that some technologies deserve the moniker “gamechanger.” AI, this paper claims, is one such technology.
Technology, however, is not an exogenous force that exerts its influence without regard to humans. As Michael Horowitz notes: “The relative impact of technological change often depends as much or more on how people, organizations, and societies adopt and utilize technologies as it does on the raw characteristics of the technology.” Another important factor is how leading powers perceive an emerging technology in terms of its anticipated impact on the future balance of economic and military power in the international system. In international relations, states have always competed in a technological sense. Yet this competition can become especially intense under conditions of great power rivalry—that is, when two or more states are locked in a race for supremacy in the international system. In this context, a technology can occasionally be thought to possess grand strategic significance. The race to acquire the atomic bomb can be placed in this league.
