Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger: International Law and the Future of Psychological Operations

Recent years have seen an explosion of activity from states and non-state actors seeking to manipulate on-line political discourse at home and abroad. These efforts have leveraged a range of different techniques, from the use of swarms of automated bots to the systemic spreading of misleading or outright fabricated information through social media. Most dramatically, recent revelations at the time of writing have suggested that the use of these techniques by the Russian government may have played a role in swaying the outcome of the 2016 US presidential elections. Technological trends seem poised to make these types of online psychological operations ever cheaper, more effective, and difficult to attribute in the near future. Given the potential for this new generation of psychological operations to destabilize the global political environment, what can be done through channels of international law and other forms of coordination to combat or control the impact of these persuasive campaigns? This paper examines this question in the context of state and nonstate actor use of online psychological operations to undermine other states. It also examines the current state of development of these techniques, and projects future capabilities based on recent advances in artificial intelligence and quantitative social science. It then examines a set of applicable international legal frameworks, arguing that the existing body of laws and norms fail to adequately constrain the use of these techniques. Finally, it provides a set of potential interventions for exploration, considering both technical and legal approaches. The European Research Council supports the present paper under the title of "Computer Advertising: The Impact of Algorithms and Virtual Robots on European Political Discourse." Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations provided in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Research Council.