Artificial intelligence and international conflict in cyberspace: Exploring three sets of issues

Abstract

What is at stake with the use of automation in international conflict in cyberspace through AI? This introductory chapter outlines the main themes, objectives, and rationale of the volume with the ambition of delineating a comprehensive perspective on the relationship between AI and international conflict in cyberspace. It does so by introducing the three sets of issues around which the volume has been organised: (1) technical and operational, (2) strategic and geopolitical, and (3) normative and legal. By highlighting the main debates for each of these issues, this chapter also contextualises the volume’s contributions into broader debates about challenges and opportunities brought by AI technology. In so doing, the chapter argues that only by understanding the relationship between AI and conflict in cyberspace as a comprehensive phenomenon and embedded in broader geopolitical conflicts, can the international community truly move forward with meaningful regulation. In its concluding part, this chapter also draws a state-of-the-art account of how the debate on emerging technologies, and AI specifically, has (not) evolved in the context of the recent multilateral processes at the United Nations (GGE and OEWG).