The world has changed significantly over the years, but one technology that has made the greatest impact is Artificial Intelligence (hereinafter ‘AI’). The use of AI in business, governance, healthcare, education, etc has been a subject for lengthy discussions. However, there is one domain in which the use of AI has been rather limited across the world more specifically in India is ‘diplomacy’. In the international order, the fourth industrial revolution has not just transformed the philosophical foundations of statesmanship at the macro level but also transformed the way international actors interact. Of the many related technologies that industry 4.0 has bolstered, AI has accelerated a paradigm shift in the world of policymaking, global governance and diplomacy in the world of geopolitics.
Digital technology has been said to be revolutionary for the future of humanity and rightly so given the potential it has already exhibited. AI has the potential to open doors for new opportunities for international and bilateral cooperation, but also to reinforce the role of the emergent state and non-state actors within the global governance framework.
This intersection of diplomatic doctrines and digital platforms is re-formulating and re-structuring the modus operandi of the integration process of digital intelligence with the traditional diplomacy in the domain of global politics. This integration process has also bridged the gap between governments, civil society and technology incorporations. Like India has its representatives in other countries through foreign missions/embassies and the said missions use AI to increase their working efficiency.
India also partakes in bilateral or multilateral commitments on AI technology sharing. In these areas, India is proactive and it can be categorised as the quest for geopolitical power and can be termed as the macro-level use of AI. Thus, the importance of AI in diplomacy and foreign policy is acknowledged by the Indian State, hence, it has taken some steps in this direction at the micro-level. In order to understand AI and diplomacy, one must understand the distinction between micro and macro level use of AI as it requires different degrees of capital and both are meant for performing a completely different set of tasks.
The interlinking of digitalization and artificial intelligence mandates the formulation of a new multidisciplinary and mixed-methods approach to study its impact on society. Purely from the lens of international relations, AI as a diplomatic tool is used to build trust among the key stakeholders in conflict resolution via the use of impartial procedures. However, from a legal lens, issues of the malicious use of artificial intelligence, cyber security, and data sovereignty have yet not received worthy attention. There is a need to analyse the inter-disciplinary component and power struggles in international diplomacy which inherently limits the scope of AI application.
The AI technology is used for simple and mundane tasks which the diplomatic missions have to undertake as part of their objectives. The missions have to issue certain travel-related documents which are pre-requisites for international travel such as passports and visas. These missions have used AI to expedite the whole process which has made life easy for those applying as well as those who are required to issue said documents.
There is also an underlying benefit that is derived by using AI which can be understood with the help of an example. India has its embassy in Kenya and the said embassy uses AI to process the applications for travel documents and because of the automated nature of AI, every application’s data is stored and collated systematically. There is a breakout of a civil war in Kenya and many people want to flee the country for obvious reasons it subsequently leads to a surge by 100 times in the number of applications seeking a visa to India for refuge. This trend is noticed courtesy of the AI and its data processing skills, now the AI will help the Indian Embassy to filter out all the applications which are dubious and fraudulent effectively only allowing genuine applications to go through. This meant that AI helped the embassy in times of a crisis and also there was no compromise on the quality of the work done by the embassy. This is the use of AI at the micro level for diplomacy.
Apart from performing mechanical tasks through the embassy the diplomats also need to partake in problem-solving exercises in real-time as and when a situation develops for which AI can be of great aid. An example would be the delegation of India is at the UNSC and certain unforeseen and tragic events happen in some part of its neighbourhood and all the member nations at the UNSC decide to set the agenda as discussing the said situation now this would put the Indian delegation in a tough spot because they are not aware of the ground reality and the situation is just developing so the Indian government can only send in a limited amount of information across.
In this case, if there were to be an AI program that could build a model of the said situation and predict the possible desirable outcomes out of the situation it would open a new dimension of problem-solving as well help the diplomats to be better prepared for the discussion entailing this situation and also take charge of the international narrative surrounding the situation. This is the use of AI at the macro level and this is where heavy capital investments are the need of the hour. India has been considering this option, however, there is a long way to go.
The micro-level use of AI is laudable but at the macro level, a lot needs to be done to fill the gap in knowledge as well as practice. In the present time, there is a need to explore the possibility of the interplay of artificial intelligence and cyber diplomacy, social media and artificial intelligence as tools for digital diplomacy.
Adithya Variath is a Researcher at Maharashtra National Law University Mumbai & Deep Dighe is an Advocate practising at the High Court of Bombay