Conference Agenda

The surge of (generative) artificial intelligence (AI) that has gained momentum as of late 2022 has been transforming our perspective on the future of humanity. However, despite the rapid pace of innovation and breakthroughs, and despite initial attempts, there is still a gap in the development in the AI governance and regulatory landscape, while a variety of risks loom large.This paper aims to analyze how the EU, US, and China perceive the future of generative AI and its impact on global dynamics. It will also provide a scenario-based analysis of the foreseeable developments in the geopolitics of AI in the short and medium term.

To that end, the paper explores the socio-technical imaginaries of a future where generative AI takes center stage, using scenario analysis as a tool. To capture socio-technical imaginaries, it combines a comprehensive review of the latest findings in various academic fields that explore the effects of AI with an interpretive analysis of cultural artifacts such as literature, movies, or other media. These artifacts provide insights into societal expectations, aspirations, and fears regarding a future where generative AI takes center stage. This approach is commonly used in social AI studies. Thus, by combining scholarly debates, cultural analysis, and a foresight method, we can gain valuable insights into the potential future of generative AI. This approach takes into account the various factors that drive change in this field, including technology, politics, economics, and society. This integration promotes a more detailed examination of possible future directions, considering not just the factors that drive them, but also the cultural and societal context, as well as the expectations and concerns related to generative AI.

The core of the paper is a scenario matrix, generated by critically analyzing three crucial factors: the speed of generative AI advancement and implementation, the level and type of international collaboration and competition in generative AI research and utilization, and the efficacy of global governance and regulation in overseeing AI development and usage. The paper examines the potential of the EU to develop a strong and effective framework for addressing the challenges of AI geopolitics, in a world in which, for now, the field is dominated by the US and China.

The extremely fast evolution of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology has demonstrated its many uses and benefits, but also its potential harms. In the security area, AI intensified two trends that may hinder the ethical approach: the technologisation of security (Ceyhan 2008; Muller 2009) and the narrative of riskification (Corry 2012; Judge & Maltby, 2017) in an environment characterized as complex, unpredictable, ambiguous and competitive. Acknowledging the high potentiality of this disruptive technology, but also the risks, the European Union (EU) defined as one of its priorities to put forward a European approach to AI. The declared goal is to reach a leading position, both technologically and ethically, by developing an "ecosystem of excellence" and a unique "ecosystem of trust" that complies with EU's values and people's fundamental rights. Focusing on the EU's security governance task of protection (Kirchner & Sperling 2007), we aim to analyse the process that opened the way for the new AI regulatory framework devised at the supranational level. Specifically, we are interested in the policy entrepreneurship (Kingdon 1984; 2003) of the European Commission and the strategies used by the institution in this process, in the timeframe that ranges from 2018 (the first EU's Strategy for AI) to 2023 (the provisional agreement on the AI Act). Additionally, we aim to assess if the recently agreed AI Act is prone to enable the EU to ensure the protection of people based on an effective, trustworthy, humancentric AI. The research will be guided by two interrelated questions: How has the Commission shaped the European coordinated approach to AI in the security domain? Does the AI Act prevent the riskification and the technologisation of security?

Peripheries can be defined as places or positions that are viewed as distant from a center or a core. The notion of a periphery is relational, as well as recursive, evaluative, and perspectival. In a more dynamic understanding, peripheries can be linked to processes of peripheralization and marginalization. Periphery is closely related to or bears a family resemblance with concepts such as margin (marge), edge, fringe, and (to a lesser extent) borderland.

The term reflects the “center-margin” metaphor coined by Raul Prebisch in his influential paper The Economic Development of Latin America and Its Principal Problems from 1950.

The term “peripheries” as used today is both contested and generative. It is contested because of its labeling and “othering” effect, its evaluative dimension with the typically negative connotation (prevailing over possibilities of more positive or neutral associations), and its loaded history (as discussed above). At the same time, the concept of peripheries is generative. It is fruitful as an analytical lens as it reveals certain common asymmetries and constraints that structure the integration, lagging and subordination of different elements within a particular order. Ballinger has argued for “the enduring power” of the concept, especially when applied as an analytical lens to Eastern Europe. We can observe similarities between postcolonial societies and peripheral (postsocialist) societies in Europe, given the global turn in European history and European Studies.

The perspectives from the peripheries opens up new ways to think about Europe, especially in conversation with the discourse on decolonization. Kamel Daoud’s The Meursault Investigation is a good example of rewriting a major contribution to European literature (Camus’ Stranger) “from the peripheries.

The paper discusses the potential of rethinking Europe and European Studies from the peripheries. It will make use of a distinction of four types of peripheries: spatial, structural, sociopolitical, and epistemic. In a spatial (or geographic) sense, peripheries can be considered spaces like borders, outskirts, far ends, liminal spaces, mountains, and islands. Peripheries in a structural sense are characterized by reduced access, limited infrastructure, increased precariousness, a lack of resources, and vulnerability. In a sociopolitical sense, peripheries are marginalized people, regions, or contexts with little political weight and with fragile identities (i.e., “in between” people and “in between” spaces). Epistemic peripheries can be places, processes, or people that are “not known,” “forgotten,” or “not considered important.”

The paper pursues the question: What is the potential of this approach?

This paper will focus on the Italian legal approach to cybersecurity. It will follow the way the Italian legislature has dealt with the various aspects of regulating unlawful computer activity over the course of over two decades, slowly building up a legal framework able to meet the cyber challenges states meet today. It will investigate how Italy has transposed the EU regulatory framework on cybersecurity, and whether it was one of the leading MS to shape the EU regulatory agenda. It will also look into the Italian position on the applicability of international law to malicious state-sponsored cyber operations, and will assess whether, in the absence of the UK (an internationally recognised cyber power) Italy can take its vacant seat on the EU decision-making table post-Brexit. The aim of the paper is to ultimately assess what the legal preparedness at national level says about the EU regulatory approach to cybersecurity more generally.