Developing CTS 4-o: a CTS research agenda on AI, terrorism and counter-terrorism

Abstract

This article argues for the Critical Terrorism Studies (CTS) field to engage more thoroughly with the implications of artificial intelligence (AI) in both terrorism and counter-terrorism. Drawing from Science and Technology Studies (STS) and critical security studies, it highlights the importance of scrutinising AI as a socially constructed technology that is embedded in power relations and specific hierarchies. It examines how AI is discursively framed as both a threat and a solution in security-related matters, shaping counter-terrorism policies in ways that reinforce state-centric, racialised, gendered and militarised security paradigms. The article outlines a CTS research agenda on AI, focusing on key areas of inquiry: the discursive construction of “AI terrorism” and “AI counter-terrorism”, the role of sociotechnical imaginaries in legitimising AI-based counter-terrorism measures, the (b)ordering of societies through algorithmic governance and the material dimensions of AI counterterrorism. By engaging with critical security scholarship and feminist, postcolonial and decolonial critiques of technology, CTS can expose how AI-driven security exacerbates inequalities while reifying the status quo. The article positions CTS as a crucial field for analysing the political and ethical implications of AI in counterterrorism and urges CTS to start engaging more robustly with AI implications in terrorism and counter-terrorism and reflecting on its political and (in)security consequences.