SPECIAL ISSUE: The Ethics of Emerging Technologies and Their Role in Geopolitical Conflict

From the use of algorithmic propaganda to influence elections to the use of drones in Ukraine, emerging technologies are already having dramatic impacts on democratic institutions, social cohesion, and armed conflict. Authoritarian regimes have been perfecting the use of algorithmic censorship and surveillance to suppress domestic dissent. The backlash to Covid control measures has boosted populist conspiracy theories about technology, and politicized science. Militaries have been developing artificial intelligence tools for threat assessment, battlefield management, and control of lethal autonomous robots. Brain-machine interfaces and psychopharmaceuticals are being assessed for use by soldiers. Military planners and geopolitical analysts have been projecting the future impacts of AI, genetic engineering, and nanotechnology on the geopolitical balance of power.

Do emerging technologies like computational propaganda pose unique risks to the health of democracy, or can the same tools be used to strengthen governmental transparency and citizen participation? Do civilian or military applications of emerging technologies threaten the geopolitical balance of power? Will drones and lethal autonomous robots make military interventions more common by reducing the cost in body bags? How will innovations in neurotechnology, nanotechnology and AI change the culture of war and our traditional understanding of military power?

Examples of appropriate topics include:

  • computational propaganda and the use of algorithmic tools in asymmetric warfare
  • algorithms and electronic platforms for citizen organizing and the monitoring and influencing of legislation
  • the use of algorithmic systems in strategic decision-making, threat assessment, and battlefield management
  • the use of drones and autonomous lethal robotics, and the capacity for algorithmic identification of combatants
  • soldier enhancement, including casualty resilience, psychopharmaceuticals, prosthetics and brain-computer interfaces
  • transnational arms control of old and emerging weapons of mass destruction: chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, the (false) bioweapons story in Ukraine and the problem of dual use, the civilian and military uses of cyberwarfare

Important Dates

Deadline: Oct 1

Published: Jan 1, 2023

Guest Editor:

James J Hughes

Steven Umbrello