GLOBAL POLITICS AND THE GOVERNANCE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE.

• Author: Dafoe, Allan
• Position: Interview

The Governance of Artificial Intelligence (AI) Program at the University of Oxford's Future of Humanity Institute focuses on the political challenges associated with the rapid development of artificial intelligence. The Journal of International Affairs spoke to Allan Dafoe, the Director of the AI Program, about the AI governance problem, the risks and challenges involved, and the role that governments and the private sector will have in establishing a comprehensive AI governance framework.

Journal of International Affairs (JIA); Your research focuses on the AI governance problem. What are the distinctive characteristics of Artificial Intelligence from a political or international governance point of view? How can AI be governed adequately?

Allan Dafoe (AD): AI is the study of machines capable of sophisticated information processing. AI systems enable us to automate, improve upon, or scale up critical human skills in prediction and decisionmaking. This makes AI a critically important, potent technology which--like electricity, the internal combustion engine, or the microprocessor--has the potential to transform the economy, society, and the military. In fact, even if there were no further technical AI developments from today onwards, the already existing capabilities create major governance challenges. How we build and use advanced AI will be the defining development of the 21st century, and one of its chief governance challenges.

The emerging field of AI governance,' as my team at the Governance of AI Program understand it, explores how humanity can best navigate the transition to advanced AI systems. We expect that such governance will prove difficult given the strategic importance of the technology, its diverse applications, and the uncertainty associated with its developmental trajectory. While we may be able to draw important lessons from past attempts at governing powerful technologies such as nuclear technology, biotechnology, and aviation, examples of unambiguously successful technology governance are historically rare. Of course, it will also be valuable to examine and learn from historical failures of international cooperation, such as the 1946 Baruch Plan for international control of nuclear weapons. However, one should keep in mind that many of these historical examples might also be of limited transferability in the context of AI, since the development of AI involves distinct sets of nations, private actors, and considerably broader stakes and interests.

As we have described in our research agenda, designing good AI governance will need to take into consideration the technical landscape of AI. It will have to consider the political impacts of advanced AI on inequality...