Should international law be used to govern the development and use of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies?  This is a crucial question as developments in AI have been speeding forward in many countries around the world.  Yet, in parallel to the excitement around the developments of AI, concerns have arisen about the impact these tools will have on everything from high school homework to nuclear war.  Beyond national regulation, many have called for the international community to come together to craft governance rules and norms that will mitigate some of the harmful effects of AI in the future.

Although international governance of this technology may be desirable, it is less apparent whether international institutions (like treaties) could or should be established to regulate something as potentially ubiquitous as AI.  This essay analogizes the development of new and anticipated AI technologies to past technological developments to present various categories of cooperation or coordination problems related to those technologies.  Invoking theories of rational institutional design, the essay first focuses on what type of problems the international system could or should solve in relation to AI. It then advocates for channeling efforts into more targeted international regimes that address discrete problems, using the problems that may arise in the area of armed conflict as a suitable example. AI’s impact on armed conflict is ripe for public regulation at the international level, especially in the context of autonomous weapons systems. The approach presented here, elevates tested strategies for solving cooperation problems that have succeeded in the past. Additionally, focusing on specific cooperation problems created by AI risks may narrow the bargaining space between countries and allow for agreement on the most feasible and meaningful tasks in the near term. These insights bridge our understanding of international relations and law to provide a framework for a feasible path forward.