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Cited by 133Political Conflict and GovernanceEthics and Social Impacts of AIPolitical Influence and Corporate Strategies

AI-tocracy

Open access
Beraja, Martin, Kao, Andrew, Yang, David Y, Yuchtman, Noam·2023·The Quarterly Journal of Economics
DOI 10.1093/qje/qjad012
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Abstract

Recent scholarship has suggested that artificial intelligence (AI) technology and autocratic regimes may be mutually reinforcing. We test for a mutually reinforcing relationship in the context of facial-recognition AI in China. To do so, we gather comprehensive data on AI firms and government procurement contracts, as well as on social unrest across China since the early 2010s. We first show that autocrats benefit from AI: local unrest leads to greater government procurement of facial-recognition AI as a new technology of political control, and increased AI procurement indeed suppresses subsequent unrest. We show that AI innovation benefits from autocrats’ suppression of unrest: the contracted AI firms innovate more both for the government and commercial markets and are more likely to export their products; noncontracted AI firms do not experience detectable negative spillovers. Taken together, these results suggest the possibility of sustained AI innovation under the Chinese regime: AI innovation entrenches the regime, and the regime’s investment in AI for political control stimulates further frontier innovation.

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  • Some nations already use AI to heavily surveil their populations, squelch viewpoints that depart from official narratives and identify and subsequently punish dissidents, and they are rapidly exporting these capabilities to like-minded autocracies.

    “Some nations already use AI to heavily surveil their populations, squelch viewpoints that depart from official narratives and identify (and subsequently punish) dissidents -and they are rapidly exporting these capabilities to like-minded autocracies (Beraja et al., 2023;Mozur et al., 2022;Kroupe, 2022).”

    From Applying AI to Rebuild Middle Class Jobs (2024) · cites this paper as Beraja et al., 2023

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Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Beraja, M., Kao, A., Yang, D. Y., & Yuchtman, N.
Affiliations
  • National Bureau of Economic Research (US)
  • Harvard University (US)
  • Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CA)
  • Centre for Economic Policy Research (GB)
ORCID
Venue
The Quarterly Journal of Economics
Publisher
Oxford University Press (OUP)
Published
2023-03-13
Volume
138
Issue
3
Pages
1349-1402
ISSN
  • 0033-5533 (ISSN-L)
  • 1531-4650
DOI
10.1093/qje/qjad012
OpenAlex
W4324029325
Cited by
133
References
12
Citations by year
2026: 27 · 2025: 72 · 2024: 29 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 1 · 2017: 1
FWCI
45.05
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
academic.oup.com/journals/pages/open_access/funder_policies/chorus/standard_publication_model (vor)
Locations
  • The Quarterly Journal of Economics (publishedVersion)
  • SSRN Electronic Journal (acceptedVersion)
  • Oxford University Research Archive (ORA) (University of Oxford) (acceptedVersion)
  • London School of Economics and Political Science Research Online (London School of Economics and Political Science) (submittedVersion)
  • London School of Economics and Political Science Theses Online (London School of Economics and Political Science) (submittedVersion)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
Funders
  • National Science Foundation
  • British Academy
  • Harvard Data Science Initiative, Harvard University
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Political Conflict and Governance
  • Social Sciences › Safety Research › Ethics and Social Impacts of AI
  • Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Strategy and Management › Political Influence and Corporate Strategies
Keywords
artificial intelligence, authoritarian regimes, facial recognition technology, political control, social unrest, public procurement, innovation, technology export, China

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