Grey Zone Governance in Geopolitics: The Case of Artificial Intelligence

PS Suryanarayana

Artificial Intelligence (AI), increasingly the hyper-tech flavour of the 21st century, holds the promise of humanity’s new destiny if harnessed responsibly and governed globally. ‘Doomsday’ concern, however, is that AI could spawn and power weapons of mass destruction (WMD), worse than the most devastating nuclear and other WMD. Robust enforceable standards for global governance of AI are lacking, characterising this technology as a ‘grey zone’ in the realm of geopolitics.

The design, development, deployment, and use of AI have become the prerogatives of states and many non-state actors. Major countries are competitively perfecting this know-how and conceptualising norms for its use as a national or even borderless asset. At different geopolitical levels – the G20, Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence, the Quad etc. – efforts are ongoing to regulate AI.

The United Nations seeks to maximise AI’s benefits and mitigate its latent risks across the world. The UN General Assembly has unanimously adopted two civil-AI resolutions, besides endorsing an intensely debated AI-arms resolution. A fair reform of the UN Security Council is necessary to regulate AI’s military applications.

The book presents the view that the UN could take the initiative to reform the UNSC on the basis of an advisory roadmap from a non-partisan AI model/system. Otherwise, the potential emergence of an ‘AI superpower’ group will be globally divisive.

This monograph is published under the auspices of the Indian Council of World Affairs and is timed for the UN Summit of the Future in September 2024 and beyond.

PS Suryanarayana

Mr. Pisupati Sadasiva Suryanarayana is a Senior Fellow at the Society for Indian Ocean Studies, New Delhi, and an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Singapore, where he was also previously engaged as a full-time researcher until mid-2020.

Prior to his engagement in academia, Mr. PS Suryanarayana was a foreign correspondent for The Hindu, where he served successively in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and the Asia Pacific region. In this capacity, he interviewed numerous prime ministers, presidents, and foreign and defence ministers across East Asia, Australia, and South Asia (other than India). He also has experience reporting from conflict zones and the capitals of four of the five permanent member states of the United Nations Security Council.

As an invited delegate, Mr. Suryanarayana participated in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Forum in Beijing in 2017 and the 9th Beijing Xiangshan Forum in 2019. Before this monograph, he authored three books: The Elusive Tipping Point: China-India Ties for a New Order (2021); Smart Diplomacy: Exploring China-India Synergy (2016), and The Peace Trap: An Indo-Sri Lankan Political Crisis (1988).

Contents

Foreword
Preface
Glossary

1. An Emerging Era of a New Mindscape of Grey Zones
2. Artificial Intelligence: Technology Unbound
3. India and China: AI Race is Likely
4. AI Arms: Calculus of Power and Principles
5. US-China Tussle to Ride The Cascading AI Wave
6. Cyber-Digital Domains: High-Tech Core of the Times
7. AI Solution for UNSC Reform: An Idea for a Global AI Order
8. Mosaic of AI Governance Outside the UN Framework
9. Summary and Conclusions: AI Geopolitics by Mid-2024

Annexures
Annexure A
Annexure B
Annexure C
Index