https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6932-8325
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ABSTRACT
Does acquiring artificial intelligence (AI) technologies from the US or China render countries more authoritarian or technologically less advantageous? In this article, we explore to what extent importing AI/high-tech from the US and/or China goes parallel with importers’ (a) democratization or autocratization, (b) state capacity, and (c) technological progress across a decade (2010–2020). Our work demonstrates that not only are Chinese AI/high-tech exports not congruous with importers’ democratic backsliding, but autocratization attributed to Chinese AI is also visible in importers of US AI. In addition, for most indicators, we do not observe any significant effect of acquiring AI from the US or China on importers’ state capacity or technological progress across the same period. Instead, we find that the story has a global inequality dimension as Chinese exports are clustered around countries with a lower GDP per capita, whereas US high-technology exports are clustered around relatively wealthier states with slightly weaker capacity over territorial control. Overall, the article empirically demonstrates the limitations of some of the prevalent policy discourses surrounding the global diffusion of AI and its contribution to democratization, state capacity, and technological development of importer nations.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Steven Feldstein, Brian Kot, Kıvanç Karaman and Emekcan Yucel, as well as anonymous reviewers, for their comments on this article.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
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Notes on contributors
H. Akın Ünver
H. Akın Ünver is an associate professor at the department of International Relations at Özyeğin University, specializing in conflict research, computational methods and emerging technologies. He is a fellow of Carnegie Endowment's Digital Democracy Network. His research is focused on how emerging technologies affect international competition and security.
Arhan S. Ertan
Arhan S. Ertan is an associate professor at the department of International Trade at Boğaziçi University. In his research, which is mostly empirical and interdisciplinary, he is aiming to provide new perspectives for explaining the developmental differences and problems observed2 around the globe.