Yet another turn? priotising the needs of diplomacy over the capabilities of generative AI

Abstract

In this forum piece, we argue that the widespread heraldry regarding artificial intelligence (AI) as a panacea in diplomacy and articulating research agendas on the changes it might bring are potentially clouding the future hardships of diplomacy. With all its subfields, International Relations (IR) has gone through numerous “turns”, especially during the last two decades which made encounters poised to change the nature of foreign policy—such as new actors, ideas, or technologies—a familiar experience. While these discussions enriched the discipline of IR, hardly any of these turns lived up to their promises. Certainly, we have an increasingly challenging and complex multipolar world ahead of us. This manifests that a broader network of actors, interests, and technologies needs to be considered. AI, indeed, has the potential capacity to assist and disrupt the ways diplomacy works. Yet heralding an anticipatory practice and study of diplomacy based on AI’s socio-technical imaginaries and calculations rather than as a participatory process centered on immediate human interaction, resources, intelligence, and rapport bears the potential of obscuring the analytical clarity needed. In short, we argue that the rise of AI should not be discussed as yet another new turn poised to cure diplomacy and international relations. We conclude our piece by reminding scholars to bring analytical focus on what lies at the heart of diplomacy.