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Over the past decade, rapid progress in artificial intelligence (AI) has transformed a range of areas, from medicine to strategic games and communication technologies, from art and culture to everyday office work. It would be naïve to assume that this evolution does not permeate and alter international affairs. Building on, and solidifying, a thriving yet still fragmented emerging literature on "AI IR," this forum gathers several critical diagnoses of the way AI technologies impact on various areas of international relations. Introducing new concepts and charting emerging empirical realities, contributors explore how AI advances, such as autonomous lethal systems, synthetic imagery and text, or intelligent systems, are already creating new landscapes of violent and nonviolent international interactions. Yet, behind their distinct takes, contributions together stress the need to correctly locate and evaluate specific sites of AI impact, thus offering a nuanced appraisal scrutinizing grand declarations of an "AI revolution" in global politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numerical arguments are increasingly present in security communication and are widely assumed to possess a distinct capacity to make an argument convincing, thereby contributing to the dynamics of securitization. Yet, does the inclusion of numbers really enhance the strength of rhetorical attempts to convince an audience that something or someone is a security problem? We examine this question by developing an experimental design that connects cognitive theories of information processing with theories of security and risk communication. Contrary to a widely shared view, our results suggest that numbers do not have a direct, unambiguous, or unconditional impact on the strength of security rhetoric. Quantitative information only enhances direct attempts to securitize issues under very specific circumstances and, even in these cases, has ambiguous effects. Factors such as the legitimacy of the individual who makes the argument may play an important role in determining the impact of numbers in security communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]