Leiden University Scholarly Publications

Persistent URL of this record https://hdl.handle.net/1887/4287039

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Csernatoni, R.; Broeders, D.; Andersen, L.H.; Hoijtink, M.; Bode, I.; Lindsay, J.R.; Schwarz, E. (2025)

Myth, power, and agency: rethinking artificial intelligence, geopolitics and war

Article / Letter to editor
This collection interrogates how Artificial Intelligence (AI) is reshaping war, sovereignty, and human agency by entangling technological experimentation with myth-making and geopolitical power. Drawing on vignettes from the Ukrainian battlefront to Silicon Valley boardrooms, the contributions highlight the paradox that AI-driven innovation is contingent on perpetual risk-taking, distributed agency between humans and machines, and opaque state-corporate alliances. The latter foregrounds discursive and ideological alignments between state and corporate elites that increasingly naturalise apocalyptic and utopian AI futures. Furthermore, the collection examines the emergence of a global war lab, where conflict zones become sites for the rapid prototyping of autonomous systems. Meanwhile, decision-support algorithms in security and defence redistribute responsibility in unforeseen ways, thus challenging the promise of meaningful human control. Such dynamics are increasingly...Show moreThis collection interrogates how Artificial Intelligence (AI) is reshaping war, sovereignty, and human agency by entangling technological experimentation with myth-making and geopolitical power. Drawing on vignettes from the Ukrainian battlefront to Silicon Valley boardrooms, the contributions highlight the paradox that AI-driven innovation is contingent on perpetual risk-taking, distributed agency between humans and machines, and opaque state-corporate alliances. The latter foregrounds discursive and ideological alignments between state and corporate elites that increasingly naturalise apocalyptic and utopian AI futures. Furthermore, the collection examines the emergence of a global war lab, where conflict zones become sites for the rapid prototyping of autonomous systems. Meanwhile, decision-support algorithms in security and defence redistribute responsibility in unforeseen ways, thus challenging the promise of meaningful human control. Such dynamics are increasingly facilitated by the emergence of an AI Empire, in which corporate technological giants and militaries co-produce new forms of sovereignty and power across the global stage. This equally raises essential questions about the risks of automated violence, revealing the enduring role of judgment and emotion in war, and how mythology itself teaches us a great deal about technologically mediated warfare. Together, the collection argues that AI’s apparent inevitability is sustained by powerful mythmaking and storytelling that normalise experimentation, accelerate escalation, and mask unequal structures of extraction and domination. Ultimately, this collection offers a critical step towards uncovering these processes and reclaiming space for critical reflection, democratic oversight, and accountable design in an era when AI “deities” increasingly govern the politics and practices of conflict today.
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All authors
Csernatoni, R.; Broeders, D.; Andersen, L.H.; Hoijtink, M.; Bode, I.; Lindsay, J.R.; Schwarz, E.
Date
2025-08-11
Journal
Minds and Machines
Volume
35
Issue
37
Advanced Publication
Yes
DOI
doi:10.1007/s11023-025-09741-0
Link
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11023-025-09741-0