AI diplomacy

AI diplomacy is about the impact of AI on geopolitics, AI as a topic on the diplomatic

agenda, and AI as a tool for diplomacy. On geopolitics, countries with advanced AI can
exercise more military, economic, and societal power. AI is a topic on the diplomatic
agenda where various agreements and treaties are negotiated. Lastly, AI is a practical
tool in diplomacy used for decision support, drafting, translation, negotiation support,
and analysis of trends and future developments.

Over the past few years, there has been significant progress in the field of artificial
intelligence (AI), which is increasingly becoming part of our everyday lives (from
intelligent digital personal assistants and smart home devices to autonomous vehicles,
smart buildings and medical robots) and not just the stuff of science fiction.

These advances are expected to have implications in several policy areas (economic,
societal, education, etc.), diplomacy, infrastructure and society in general, and
governments, the technical community, and private sector actors worldwide are
increasingly considering them.

DiploFoundation’s Artificial Intelligence Lab (AI Lab) is a multifaceted initiative that

includes research and analysis on AI policy, capacity development in the field of AI and
related areas, reports from main events and discussions on AI, analysis into the impact
of AI on diplomacy, and much more.
Explore the research, activities, and events powered by Diplo’s AI Lab in this dedicated
space, and get in touch with the AI Lab at ai@diplomacy.edu.
Greater scrutiny is necessary because AI will have a significant impact on international
relations, such as putting new topics on the international agenda, challenging
geostrategic relations, serving as a tool for diplomats and negotiators, and creating
new opportunities and concerns about protecting human rights.
Policy implications of AI

The policy implications of AI are far‐reaching. While AI can potentially lead to

economic growth, there are growing concerns over the significant disruptions it could
bring to the labour market. Issues related to privacy, safety, and security have also
been brought into focus, with calls being made for the development of standards that
can help ensure that AI applications have minimum unintended consequences.

The GIP Digital Watch observatory, operated by DiploFoundation, provides insight on

AI: Artificial intelligence: Policy implications, applications, and developments, providing
regular updates on AI developments, as well as information about actors, events, and
processes addressing the topic.

Economic and social

AI has significant potential to lead to economic growth. Used in production processes,

AI systems bring automation, making processes smarter, faster, and cheaper, and
therefore bringing savings and increased efficiency. Concerns are raised that
automated systems will make some jobs obsolete, and lead to unemployment. There
are, however, also opposing views, according to which AI advancements will generate
new jobs, which will compensate for those lost, without affecting the overall
employment rates.

Safety and security

AI applications in the physical world (e.g. in transportation) bring into focus issues
related to human safety, and the need to design systems that can properly react to
unforeseen situations, and have minimum unintended consequences. AI also has
implications in the cybersecurity field. On the one hand, there are cybersecurity risks
specific to AI systems, and on the other, AI is being applied to cybersecurity, from
spam filtering to detecting serious cybersecurity vulnerabilities and address cyber-
threats.
Privacy and data protection

AI systems work with enormous amounts of data, and this raises concerns regarding
privacy and data protection. Such concerns are well illustrated by the increasingly
important interplay between AI, the Internet of Things (IoT), and big data. Developers
of AI systems are asked to ensure the integrity of the used data, as well as embed
privacy and data protection guarantees into AI applications.

Ethics

As AI algorithms involve judgements and decision-making – replacing similar human

processes – concerns have been raised regarding ethics, fairness, justice, transparency,
and accountability. The risk of discrimination and bias in decisions made by AI systems
is one such concern. Researchers are carefully exploring the ethical challenges posed
by AI and are working, for example, on the development of AI algorithms than can
‘explain themselves’.

Legal

The prevailing question is whether AI-related challenges call for new legal and
regulatory frameworks, or whether existing ones can be adapted to address them.
Adapting current regulation is seen by many as the most suitable approach for the
time being. Governments are advised that, when considering regulatory approaches
towards AI, attention should be paid to ensuring that such approaches do not hinder
innovation and progress.

Visit the  GIP Digital Watch observatory to find out more on these issues.

Featured: The rise of autonomous vehicles

Autonomous driving has moved from the realm of science fiction to a very real
possibility during the past twenty years, largely due to rapid developments of radar
technology and microprocessor capacity. Portable technology has sufficiently
advanced to allow ultra-light hardware to make decisions based on self-improving
algorithms, which means that developers stand a better chance of replicating the real-
time decision-making of humans in autonomous cars.

The speed at which autonomy has developed has made it challenging to regulate. In
2017, the US Congress started to debate the Safely Ensuring Lives Future Deployment
and Research in Vehicle Evolution (SELF DRIVE) Act, a draft legislation aimed, among
others, at transferring jurisdiction over autonomous vehicle testing from American
states to the federal government. In the European Union (EU), Germany has been a
trailblaser in autonomous vehicle policy on account of its important automotive sector.
As of 2017, Germany has a law in place that allows the testing and operation of
autonomous vehicles on public roads, under certain conditions.
In May 2018, the European Commission presented a communication entitled ‘On the
road to automated mobility: An EU strategy for the mobility of the future’, outlining a
set of action points aimed at achieving the EU’s ambition of becoming ‘a world leader
in the deployment of connected and automated mobility’.

The novelty of autonomous technology stands to change our legal and social
relationships to everyday transport.

The impact of AI on diplomacy

Mapping AI’s challenges and opportunities for the conduct of diplomacy

Building on DiploFoundation’s continuous research on the relationship between

technology and diplomacy – and the recent report on Data Diplomacy, commissioned
by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland, as well as the ongoing mapping
of developments in artificial intelligence (AI) undertaken by the GIP Digital Watch
observatory – Diplo’s AI Lab is partnering with institutions to progress the research and
capacity development in the area of AI and diplomacy.
One of our research projects will Map AI’s challenges and opportunities for the
conduct of diplomacy. With AI’s entry into all aspects of society, it will inevitably
influence diplomacy. The more deeply AI is integrated into society, the larger the effect
will be on the context in which diplomats operate. Broadly speaking, our aim is to
understanding how AI, both existing applications and future developments, will impact
the conduct of diplomacy.

Our research as part of the inception study is being conducted in four areas:

1. In the first area of research, we aim to give a brief overview of the broad
impact of AI on the conduct of diplomacy, building on DiploFoundation’s
three-part typology which maps AI in relation to diplomatic practice in three
areas:

 AI as a tool for diplomatic practice

 AI as a topic for diplomatic negotiations

 AI as an element shaping the environment in which diplomacy is

practised

2. In the second area of research, we are providing an overview of national

recommendations and policies regarding AI. A number of countries have begun
to work towards national AI strategies. We give an overview of these (emerging)
strategies and analyse trends.

3. In the third area of research, AI as a tool for diplomacy, we are giving an

overview and access the advances of AI in analysing, recognising, and
simulating human language. This has potential relevance for AI’s ability to
support the work of diplomats and other foreign policy professionals in
analysing internal and external text documents, analysing speeches and
giving input for the content and framing of speeches, catching spam and
unwanted messages, and identifying hate speech and combating the spread
of terrorism content on social media platforms.
 4. The fourth area of research zooms in on one specific implication of AI by
looking at its human rights dimension. As AI algorithms involve judgements
and decision-making – replacing similar human processes – concerns have
been raised regarding ethics, fairness, justice, transparency, and
accountability. In this area or research, we provide an overview of the key
debates and give a future outlook.

Preparing diplomats for 2030 and beyond

It is no longer science fiction. AI is behind the wheel, flying drones, and winning chess
games. It is powering robots to automate tasks, and to replicate human behaviour. AI
is appearing also on international agendas. Will emerging technologies redefine the
core social and ethical pillars of humanity? How can mankind ensure growth and the
positive effect of new technologies, while addressing potential risks? And which core
diplomatic functions can, and cannot, be automated? Can negotiations be
programmed, and can empathy be digitalised?

The high-level panel, which talked robots, risks, and reality-checks, was led by Maltese
President  Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca, and included a wide range of views, from those
who argue that AI can never replace the uniqueness of human beings,  to those who
argue that it is matter of time when AI would be capable of simulating human
intelligence and emotions.

These questions were among the issues addressed in November 2017 by a high-level
panel organised as part of Diplo’s 15th anniversary conference, The Future of
Diplomacy.

A matter of choice and judgment?

So  far, the  extent to which we use AI is matter of choice and a matter of judgment.
Will it remain so? Is the world a better place because  games such as chess and Go lost
their magic, once humans were beaten by automated systems? In some instances, the
success of technology over humans is a ‘victory without beauty’.

AI, like any other technology, does not come without risks. One risk we should be
focusing on is that AI and automation can bring a new form of digital divide, as some
parts of the world would benefit of the advantages of these technologies, while others
would not have access to them.

AI is here to stay, and its development cannot and should not  be stopped. As always in
history, we should acknowledge that we have to live with both the good and the bad
of technology. Thus, we should focus on risk management, and try to diminish and
contain the possible negative impact of such technologies.

But, looking at the broader picture, if we focus on what we do not even know will even
happen, we will stifle innovation. Governments should not impose regulations on
technologies  that are brand new. However, some general and flexible principles
guiding the evolution of AI and setting the frame for future developments should be
considered. For example, analogous to the climate change field, the precautionary
principle could be used to prevent the potential negative impact of AI on human rights
and society. Looking  at the area of diplomacy, can AI handle negotiations?

Some believe this is not the case, as negotiations are an area of the unexpected, and AI
systems cannot deal with the  specificities of identities, as they are different,
unexpected, and arbitrary. AI can help diplomats, for example in data processing, but it
cannot replace the human factor entirely. AI cannot reach compromise, and it is blind
to perception, intuition, and risk taking. Human diplomats can detect the
undetectable, see the invisible, notice the unnoticeable, and this is not something AI
systems can do, at least not in the foreseeable future.

Others are of the view that negotiations can be automated, to  some extent.
Automated negotiations could work well in win-lose  situations, but not necessarily in
complex situations. On the other  hand, even the emotional parts of negotiations could
be automated. And there is also a middle-ground view: AI will complement diplomatic
activities, and we should look at how to use it to enhance the functions of diplomats.