The paradox of powerful dual-use technologies

Opinion

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This article was published 06/02/2025 (236 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

History is full of new inventions being repurposed for war and ill-intent. The difference now is the speed and scale at which this is happening. Societies today are seeing a mind-boggling rollout of new, versatile consumer electronics and digital business products.

These are essential for increasing collective wealth and prosperity. But they are also creating novel, unpredictable security risks.

Dual-use technologies are items with both civilian and military usefulness. Think artificial intelligence (AI). Or drones, robots and self-driving vehicles. Virtual and augmented reality, cloud storage and predictive analytics software. Even advanced semiconductors and satellite internet. And soon — quantum computing.

Each of these holds vast potential to improve lives and help solve the world’s most pressing problems. But there is a dark side. They are also accelerating conflicts and creating new vulnerabilities at the global, national and local levels.

The most obvious example is drones. Off-the-shelf consumer models have proliferated. Some are available online for just a few hundred dollars. Farmers, conservationists, filmmakers and many others have benefited from using them.

Yet so have militaries and terrorist groups. Much of the ongoing fighting in Ukraine has evolved into a laboratory of drone warfare powered by AI. And state and non-state actors worldwide have taken note. Governments are thus scrambling to adapt to how to protect their populations in a hostile world against possible future attacks.

Late last year, a wave of mysterious sightings of suspected drones near critical infrastructure in the northeastern U.S. caused widespread panic. Federal officials ultimately dismissed the sightings as benign. But the episode revealed alarming cracks in America’s domestic emergency response system.

Officials are also struggling to grasp the risks posed by AI. The technology will spur innovation, turbocharge productivity and unlock human capital in countless, unimaginable ways. The upside is absolutely enormous.

Although AI will also herald whole new categories of risk — possibly existential, argue some experts. Many cite the growing hostilities between the world’s two nuclear-armed tech superpowers, the U.S. and China.

Yet such fears might be misplaced. “The real existential threat ahead is not from China,” two technologists wrote in January for the MIT Technology Review, “but from the weaponization of advanced AI by bad actors and rogue groups who seek to create broad harms, gain wealth, or destabilize society.”

These outcomes could manifest themselves in all sorts of ways, large and small. Terrorist groups may harness AI to create bioweapons or launch crippling cyberattacks. Or lone-wolf extremists and disillusioned citizens could use it to lash out in anger. Electoral politics could become poisoned by deepfakes. The possibilities are endless.

Silicon Valley’s influence and culture seeping into politics is creating a parallel dilemma: authorities and individuals more and more view tech as a cure-all for complex issues. Belarussian writer Evgeny Morozov has coined this fallacy as “techno-solutionism.”

In reality, a blind rush to adopt cutting-edge tools can squander resources and aggravate pre-existing problems.

A recent Free Press investigation, for example, shows the Winnipeg Police Service (WPS) has used its tactical robot dog for operations just once in nearly three years. Instead, “Spot,” as it’s known — purchased for $257,000 from an American company, for use confronting barricaded and armed suspects — has been deployed more often as a public relations prop.

The WPS has defended the acquisition as a means to protect its officers — but only in very select circumstances. And its leadership won’t elaborate on what those are.

Citizen surveys meanwhile suggest only 45 per cent of city residents approve of police performance amid a spike in violent crime. That’s plummeted from 64 per cent just five years ago.

But a high-tech robot dog doesn’t aid in crime prevention. The experiences of law enforcement agencies in Los Angeles, New York and Hawaii have already proven that. Spending a quarter-million dollars on something the average person considers a piece of dystopian hardware also risks further denting the WPS’s reputation.

Vladimir Putin thankfully fell into a similar trap ahead of ordering his full invasion of Ukraine. The Kremlin for years splurged billions of dollars on developing super weapons like hypersonic missiles, nuclear armed submarine drones and thermobaric bombs. But as Russian forces lumbered toward Kyiv, they were exposed — if only briefly — as a paper tiger.

Turns out Moscow’s ultra-modern military was dependent on expired food rations, cheap Chinese tires, consumer cellphones and a thoroughly corrupt leadership structure.

An immense technological revolution is already underway. The challenge for decision-makers, both now and in the future, will be to find the right tools to address the shared problems we’re faced with.

Kyle Hiebert is a Winnipeg-based political risk analyst, and former deputy editor of the Africa Conflict Monitor.