Artificial Intelligence and Foreign Policy: A New Actor in State Decision-Making?

Written by Keerthana Devaraj

Keerthana from India transitioned from commerce to international affairs after her bachelor’s, driven by a passion for diplomacy. She aspires to join the United Nations and become a diplomat. Her interests include international and social affairs, negotiations, culture, heritage, and the evolving landscape of global diplomacy.

The emergence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) progresses beyond being a technological instrument because it now functions as a prominent force which guides nations in their political decision-making. Academics who serve as diplomats along with politicians and bureaucrats traditionally controlled foreign policy functions through interpretation of geopolitical situations while using their judgment for negotiations. New technology advances through AI have introduced a progressive factor which lets algorithms combined with data analytics alongside machine learning models assist national authorities in their global strategic decisions.

Foreign policy gains its foremost benefit from AI through processing large amounts of information. Through real-time data analysis leaders can make better decisions in their role as statespersons because of immediate actionable information delivery. AI continues to expand its operations in both strategic forecasting along with risk assessment procedures. Such forecasting tools prove beneficial to understand enemy conduct while providing guidance for imposing sanctions and implementing treaty agreements. As an advisor AI does not transmit human prejudices or exhaustion yet encounters restrictions due to its training data and programming rationale.

States now face critical ethical and legal issues because autonomous weapons must determine life-or-death decisions thus requiring states to reassess their war laws along with their controls over arms and their sovereignty principles. AI-enabled systems deployed in foreign relations or their potential use functions as an object of negotiation by governments during diplomatic negotiations.

The implementation of AI systems in foreign policy operations comes with serious potential dangers. Decision-makers depending on AI system outputs becomes problematic because they often lack the knowledge of how conclusions are made due to algorithmic opacity. Nearly all forms of diplomatic endeavours require precise interpretation of AI recommendations to avoid the escalation of conflicts instead of finding potential solutions. Under data poisoning and adversarial attacks adversaries have the capability to make AI systems work against their owner states.

Private sector organizations developing AI technologies create extra challenges for anticipating AI applications worldwide. Many advanced AI technologies originate from commercial corporations instead of standard government agencies. Transparency and national sovereignty along with accountability become uncertain factors because of these developments. The extent of control relinquishment by states becomes critical when proprietary AI systems guide foreign policy initiatives because they exist outside government authority.

Businesses using AI face new susceptibilities through its entry into their operations. The use of proprietary AI models developed by Palantir and OpenAI for private corporations creates foreign policy control issues because crucial government decisions become dependent on systems owned by external parties.

As concerns the ethical networks possible harmful consequences and their increased demand for international regulations. It has been acknowledged that foreign policy perspective matter and that foreign movie actors need to be partners in creating policies. We know that not a single technology for a collection of technologies and applications countless uses and consequences and we can only give the shape of developments in the future. Sometimes we can take many diplomats to set up one mobile phone or Power point presentation as such technical expertise or understanding is necessary for our education or in our DNA work closely with those who posses the expertise in technologies matters.

“AI is likely to be either the best or worst thing to happen to humanity” – Stephen Hawking