Public opinion and national security: an emerging technology perspective in the age of AI

Thesis

Most people assume the future of AI will be decided exclusively by leading AI firms, informed by research from prestigious university labs, and regulated by policy wonks concentrated in the U.S. government. But the history of emerging technology national security policy paints a different, more complicated picture.

Public opinion has shaped many critical national security decisions, such as the United States’ push to land a man on the moon. For 21st century emerging technologies, public attitudes will likely matter even more. Dual-use technologies which everyday people can buy at the hardware store have proliferated. Industrial policy questions have entered widely watched presidential debates. And individuals have become wary that technologies they use daily, like TikTok, could be banned in the name of national security. All these developments have pushed the newest wave of emerging technology from situation rooms and boardrooms into the public eye. The key question has become not whether public opinion matters, but how publics respond to key national security challenges defined by their emerging technology context.

This article-based dissertation advances three arguments explaining how individual consumption, production, and experience of security in emerging technology domains impact public opinion. I show publics follow friendshoring logics when deciding which technologies to purchase, double-down in their willingness to bear economic costs when faced with adversarial tech competition, and respond hawkishly to threats even when protected from material violence by substantially improved defensive technologies. These theories are validated using original survey and natural experiments from the UK navigating U.S.-China tech competition, Taiwan amidst threats to its semiconductor “Silicon Shield,” and post-Iron Dome Israel during conflicts with Hamas.

Taken together, this dissertation illustrates how publics react to emerging technology-related national security challenges, with important lessons for AI governance as potentially transformative frontier systems rapidly penetrate increasingly interconnected public and national security domains.

Authors: Singer, SR

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-1rvxgz4bz
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: international security; AI; international relations; emerging technology; public opinion
• Subjects: international relations; political science