Artificial Intelligence as a Tool for Selective Migration Policy: Methodology, Effectiveness, and Socio-Cultural Consequences

In the context of growing global mobility and increasing migration challenges, states are increasingly resorting to digital technologies to optimize migration management. In this context, artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming from an auxiliary tool into a central element of selective migration policy, providing strategic selection of migrants based on predictive analytics and big data. The article analyzes specific examples of AI implementation in migration systems, such as ETIAS in the EU, USCIS in the US, and the Global Talent Visa in the UK, demonstrating the shift from bureaucratic procedures to algorithmic management. The author shows that, despite increased operational efficiency and analytical power, the widespread use of AI is associated with significant ethical and socio-cultural risks: algorithmic discrimination, opacity of decisions ("black boxes"), the formation of "digital inequality," and the dehumanization of the migration process. The methodological foundation of the study consists of general logical techniques of the dialectical method (analysis, comparison), methods of systemic analysis, and algorithmic management. The main results of the study are as follows. Special attention is paid to the problem of reproducing historical biases through training models on biased data, which leads to the systematic marginalization of migrants from certain regions. Since algorithms are trained on archives of past decisions, they can reinforce colonial stereotypes, selective practices, and ethnic stereotypes, transforming them into "objective" assessments of risk or integration potential. The article emphasizes the need for an interdisciplinary reflexive approach, in which migration studies, as an integrative humanitarian discipline, takes on the role of a control mechanism capable of exposing the hidden ideologies of algorithms and protecting the rights of migrants. It is argued that only the combination of technological innovations with ethical frameworks, such as the OECD principles on AI and the provisions of European regulation on artificial intelligence, and the recognition of migrant agency, will preserve migration as a space of freedom rather than turn it into a technocratic filtering procedure.

artificial intelligence, migration policy, selectivity, algorithmic discrimination, digitalization, emigration studies, AI ethics, dehumanization, Big data, algorithmic control