Artificial Intelligence and Cross-Domain Warfare: Balance of Power and Unintended Escalation

ABSTRACT

In what ways are Artificial Intelligence (AI), cybersecurity, and traditional military conflict are connected? I examine how AI affects the relationship between cyber and military operations that states carry out. The analysis indicates that, while AI is unlikely to become a major cause of cross-domain war in the near future, it is likely to affect its likelihood in two ways. First, AI is likely to cause peacetime change in the balance of cyber and military power; they reshape the distribution of military capability between nations, which in turn affect the likelihood of cyberwar. Second, limitations with AI programs are likely to increase the chance of inadvertent conflict. This is not because state actors will heed AI recommendations on the use of force but because AI's programmatical flaws, such as bias toward minorities and confounding problems, will drive state actors into disagreement even when they do not wish to.

Acknowledgements

For constructive comments on earlier drafts, I thank Ingvild Bode, Guangyu Qiao-Franco, and Anna Nadibaidze, the anonymous reviewers of the manuscript, as well as participants in the “The Algorithmic Turn in Security and Warfare” conference held at the University of Southern Denmark in January 2022.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

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Nori Katagiri

Nori Katagiri is Associate Professor of Political Science and Coordinator of International Studies at Saint Louis University. He is Associate Editor of Global Studies Quarterly. He has a forthcoming book on how liberal democracies defend digital networks from hackers in authoritarian states. His other works on cybersecurity have been published in, among other places, Journal of Cybersecurity, Journal of Cyber Policy, and International Review of Law, Computers and Technology.