War on the Rocks, a national-defense blog associated with the University of Texas and the Texas National Security Review, has published a fascinating and disturbing article about the development of AI and nuclear-deterrent technologies. The author of the piece, James Johnson, offers the value of such systems while considering the extent to which we should trust AI with nuclear responses.

Johnson writes:

“AI technology” is already fused into military machines, and global armed forces are well advanced in their planning, research and development, and, in many cases, deployment of AI-enabled capabilities.
AI does not exist in a vacuum. In isolation, AI is unlikely to be a strategic game changer. Instead, it will likely reinforce the destabilizing effects of advanced weaponry, thereby increasing the speed of war and compressing the decision-making timeframe. The inherently destabilizing effects of military AI may exacerbate tension between nuclear-armed powers, especially China and the United States, but not for the reasons you may think.
The Emerging AI-Nuclear Nexus
It is worth considering how advances in AI technology are being researched, developed, and, in some cases, are deployed and operational in the context of the broader nuclear deterrence architecture — early-warning and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; command and control; nuclear weapon delivery systems; and non-nuclear operations.

(Read the rest here.)

As a layman when it comes to nuclear missiles and AI, I can think only of the scene in Dr. Stangelove or: How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, where Peter Sellers plays the good Dr. Strangelove and explains the suspect practicality of a “doomsday machine” — a device that would automatically and irrevocably trigger a world-ending explosion upon nuclear attack.

I’m sure the lovely people in our R&D departments have their reasons for AI-nuclear integration, but I must admit my reservations are profound.